Several years ago, as my uncle was preparing to move from his lake-front home back into the city, my husband and I paid him a quick weekend visit. The move was very soon; there was not much left to pack. As we helped him fill a few boxes and take some pictures down from the walls, my uncle, knowing my interest in our family's history, asked me to take a box from his basement.  "Tell me what's in this box," he said, explaining that for many years he'd been the custodian of this box of DeWitt family documents but that he'd never gone through it himself.  At the end of the weekend, we went back home to Ontario from Quebec, our document box placed carefully in the trunk of the car.  After I got home, it didn't take me long to crack open that box. I really wish I'd taken a photo the moment I opened it.  This slightly-posed photo will have to do.
The main purpose of this website is to showcase the incredible documents that are in this box. I hope that, by making my ancestors' letters and documents freely available, I will be able to help DeWitt descendants to learn more about their ancestors' daily lives, and to better understand our familial connections. With my uncle's permission, I will be donating the originals to the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec  once I've finished scanning everything.

This is very much a work in progress!