As most of you know, it was the religious order - The Gentlemen of St. Sulpice, also called the Sulpicians, that gave the land in St. Columban to the origianl settlers. Today's Montreal Gazette (Sunday, April 1st 2007) has an article about this group that might be of general interest. Jeff has provided the following link but we are not sure how long this link stays active....

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f78c7a84-df7f-4a12-a4e8-a434757c2faf&k=86089

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

Quick Notes,

Some of us attended the St. Patrick's Luncheon in Montreal on Friday - and it was fun....

It doesn't look like CTV-Montreal News ran the article about our project last night - They said it would run on St. Patrick's Day - but maybe it'll be on tonight....(Channel 205 in Montreal on Expressvu)

Marie-Chistian is still working on the editing of the DVD - Hopefully it will be ready soon - We tried to have it done for St. Pat's Day but MC had some problems with her computer editing system last week..

Leaving shortly to attend the little St. Patrick's event in St. Columban - It would seem that they have a Mass first at around 10-10:15 and then have a little Irish affair in the back of the Church...Hope to see some of you there...

Take Care & Have fun at the Montreal Parade if you going....

Just a hot tip for our researchers I noticed his week Ancestry.ca recently opened up access to to it's newly acquired Drouin collection. This will be free until the end of March 2007:

St Columban parish records are here:
http://content.ancestry.ca/Browse/list.aspx?dbid=1091&path=Saint.St-Colomban

About Quebec Vital Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967
Until the late 1900s, church registers in Quebec served as civil and vital records in that province. This database contains church records from all denominations in Quebec up to 1940. The majority of the records are of baptisms, marriages, and burials, but other record types are included. Most of the records are written in French, but some are written in English, Latin, or Italian.

Until the late 1900s, church registers in Quebec served as civil and vital records in that province. Throughout the years a second copy of church records, from all denominations, was sent annually to the appropriate courthouse. During the 1940s the vital record collections in courthouses throughout Quebec were filmed by the Institut G?n?alogique Drouin.* Consequently, this filmed set of records became known as the Drouin Collection.

The filming of vital records continued for some areas up through the 1960s. Because only some areas were filmed for these latter years (1940s-60s), the amount of records contained in this database is very few compared with the entire population of Quebec at the time.

Hi Everyone;

Just a quick note that I was interviewed yesterday by CTV about our Cemetery Restoration project. I think that they were also going to speak to Kelley. Apparently, the interview is supposed to run on the CTV-Montreal (the old CFCF) news on St. Patrick's Day - Saturday, March 17th - probably at 6pm and again at 11pm...Not sure how many of us outside of Montreal receive this signal, but thought I would let you all know about it...

Also, so far only Ken and me are planning to go to St. Columban and meet Claude on Sunday morning for a little Irish event (March 18th). Daryl is also coming with his Irish pipes. We intend to meet in the Church parking lot at 11:15am on Sunday morning so if any of you are available, please join us.

Take Care

Fergus

Hi folks,

I thought I should post this for anyone who maybe interested in the world of bagpipes. I recently started a venture, along with a compatriot and good friend of mine in Quebec City, Patrick McSweeney(from Ireland) of making bagpipes from the garage. Patrick had bought a C chanter from Ebay some time ago, belonging to a Matt Kiernan in C pitch.

I then took it upon myself, for the love of the sound - not to mention cost and associated wait times, to build him a set of drones a Tenor, Baritone, and Bass. After tireless but fruitful searches, I came upon many tools, tricks, and advice from well known bagpipemakers, and as a result of that venture was born a C set of drones known to the piping community as (chanter + 3 drones) = a 1/2 set of Uilleann Irish pipes.

I can post the album that I've created over the last year or so, to show you a few pictures of what's involved, but not entirely as some feats and semantics cannot possibly shown due to complexities and of the sort.

Here's the link..Enjoy! : ?http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2106262210

Just noticed in today's Montreal Gazette - Saturday - March 10th 2007 - Page C 11 the following obituary - Joan Poole was one of my first cousins - her mother was Mary Keyes - (my father's sister)...

Poole, Joan (nee Gunning). Peacefully on March 8 2007 in her seventy-seventh year at St. Luc Hospital. Beloved wife of Ronald and cherished mother of Glenn, beloved sister of Richard, and the late Lorraine (Zuck), Loretta, Donald and Robert. Memorial service to be held at a later date.

A few general notes:-

St. Columban Event ? March 18th

As per a note from Claude,  Madame Daoust has invited all members of our group to attend a small St. Patrick?s event in St. Columban on Sunday, March 18th at about 11:30am. I know that this is the same day as the big Parade in Montreal, but as Claude mentions, it would be an opportunity to meet with the Church Wardens as a group and promote our project?We could likely still get back to Montreal to see some of the Parade. If any of you think that you can visit St. Columban on the 18th, please let either Claude or me know?

St Patrick?s Day Luncheon ? Friday - March 16th 2007

I have reserved an paid for eight places at the St. Patrick?s Lunchion. If any of you would like to join the St. Columban table at this event (I think it starts around 11:30am and goes until about 2 PM), please contact Geri Newell from the St. Patrick?s Society of Montreal at 514-481-1346 and mention that you would like to reserve a spot at our table. (So far, I have two tickets; I reserved three for Claude; I reserved one for Ken and two for Kelley.)

Google ads on the Page

As mentioned before we have ?Google Ads? on the site to help support the cost for the Web Page.  How it works is that each time someone clicks on one of these ads, we get a few pennies. I?m please to say that we recently received over $ 140. from the last years of activities. This pays for about 6 months of the web page costs which are about $ 25.00 per month. So if you see any ad that is interesting to you when you visit the web page, please do click on it.

DVD Project

Marie-Christian might be finish the initial edit of the DVD by tomorrow, In this case, I will meet with her and get a copy and then try to arrange a meeting with anyone interested to view the video before the final cut and production.  At $ 20.00 each, we will have to sell at least a 100 copies to about break-even on the editing costs; the blank CD?s; covers etc. Once we pass the 100 mark, we should start making a little profit for the project.

Relocating the Tombstones

We may have found a spot to relocate the tombstones and keep them from further harm until we are ready to build our project. Mr. Tommy Doyle who owns the Doubleranch in St. Columban has invited us to visit his property and see if we can find a spot to store them.

That?s the update info. for now?

Take Care

Fergus

Ronald Hurley sent Claude a copy of his "McEvoy" family news letter called "The Good News" which mentions the early McEvoy connection to St. Columban...Interesting and fun to rean, you can see a copy in the attanhment....

Gregory Carroll sent us this great image of Frank Carroll

Fergus

 The town historian of Indian Lake, New York was nice enough to send me a photograph of Frank Carroll  b.  Aug. 12, 1839 of William Carroll and Catherine Cunningham in St. Columban.  I'm attaching it with this e-mail.  Feel free to post it on the website.  Thanks.

Gregory Carroll

Shelia sent us this link to an article about Toronto's efforts to honour their early Irish immigrants

[url]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070224.STATUE24/TPStory/?query=toronto+waterfront+statues+to+honour+irish+immigrants[/url]