DIY Genealogy: A Favourite Free Resource for Quebec Scottish Ancestors

Bursting with useful information! 

Looking for a free resource for your Scottish ancestors in Quebec, Canada? Try the Huntingdon Gleaner Extracts hosted by the Huntingdon County branch of the Canada GenWeb genealogy website.

Fig. 1: Gleaner Extracts indexed by year at Huntingdon County GenWeb

The Gleaner newspaper was established in 1863 and included regions such as Elgin, Godmanchester and Huntingdon in Beauharnois Regional County (now part of Monteregie Region), Quebec, Canada. 

It is notable that the newspaper's first editor, Robert Sellar, also wrote a contemporary social history on the area, The History of the County of Huntingdon and the Seigniories of Chateauguay & Beauharnois from their settlement to 1838 (published by The Canadian Gleaner in 1888). An early settler to this region my founding ELDER ancestor, George ELDER, Sr. (1780-1848), is mentioned in this work.

The Gleaner Extracts are are primarily birth, marriage, and death announcements of English-speaking families in the area, transcribed from The Gleaner newspaper. As with all transcriptions, they may be prone to error. However, I have found it an invaluable first step in tracing my Scottish "Ecossais" ancestors who settled in the region. I have found a great number of my ELDER ancestors and cousins in these extracts.

The Huntingdon Gleaner Extracts cover the years from 1863 to 1951. To verify the information they contain with images from the originial source, The Huntingdon Gleaner newspaper, visit Library and Archives Canada (LAC) or Quebec's provincial archives (BAnQ). 

For a list of books and other sources on this region of Quebec, courtesy of Canada GenWeb, click here.

                                        

Source:

Henderson, Bill. Huntingdon Gleaner Extracts, 1863-1951. Canada GenWeb, Huntingdon County branch, last updated 9 December 2023 : < https://canadagenweb.org/quebec/huntingdon/gleaner/index.htm > : accessed on 30 August 2026.

Sellar, Robert. (1888). The History of the County of Huntingdon and the Seigniories of Chateauguay & Beauharnois from their settlement to 1838. Internet Archive: 2008 : < https://archive.org/details/historyofcountyo00sellrich/page/n5/mode/2up > : accessed on 30 August 2026.