Notice Board

The Dr. Alex Johnston Lecture Series in co-operation with The University of Lethbridge  and, the Lethbridge Historical Society
Presents

Making Mr. Denney’s Archive: ‘Pioneer’ Genealogists and the Reimagination of Prairie Roots

Michel Hogue, Carleton University

November 7, 2024
7:00 PM
Galt Museum and Archives

 This talk examines the genealogical collecting by two researchers, Clarence Kipling and Charles Denney, two “amateur,” Alberta-based researchers who laboured at the margins of the historical profession, but whose work across the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s yielded sprawling archival collections that documented Metis family histories and those of other “fur trade families.”  It draws on the letters they exchanged with other genealogical researchers, as well as the genealogical charts, scrapbooks, and other sources they created, collected, and organized. It suggests how their archive gave physical expression to changing ideas about family and ancestry during this time period. By examining their collecting and tracing the continued use of their collections it suggests that genealogical research became an important site of public history in the Prairie West and the site for an important—if complicated—reimagining of the region’s past.