"The Grandmother’s Story": Oral Tradition, Family Memory, and a Mysterious Manuscript
Abstract
The author's discovery of a manuscript with no known provenance but seemingly unique historical content compelled him to apply the tools of the archivist to assess its authenticity and reliability. Without an understanding of its context of creation and transmission, he could not trust the written recollections of an oral tradition told by a grandmother to her grandchildren of the coming of the loyalists to New Brunswick in 1783. Further investigation yielded variant versions of the grandmother's story in print format, archival repositories, and private hands, all connected in some unexplained way. Unravelling this mystery not only proved the accuracy and authenticity of the original manuscript, but revealed the identity of the hitherto anonymous author and insights into the relationship of oral tradition versus the written word, collective remembering, the making and transmission of memory, and the role of research in archival practice.
RÉSUMÉ
La découverte par l'auteur d'un manuscrit sans provenance mais dont le contenu historique semblait unique l'a contraint à appliquer les outils archivistiques afin d'évaluer son authenticité et sa fiabilité. En l'absence du contexte de création et de transmission, il ne pouvait se fier à la transcription d'une tradition orale racontée par une grand-mère à ses petits-enfants concernant l'arrivée des loyalistes au Nouveau-Brunswick en 1783. Une enquête plus poussée a révélé des versions différentes de l'histoire de la grand-mère en format imprimé, dans des dépôts d'archives et chez des particuliers, toutes reliées de façon inexpliquée. Dénouer ce mystère a permis de prouver l'authenticité du manuscrit original et également de révéler l'identité de son auteur jusqu'ici anonyme. De plus, il a été possible pour l'auteur d'éclairer les relations entre la tradition orale et l'écrit, le souvenir collectif et la transmission de la mémoire et, enfin, de démontrer le rôle de la recherche dans la pratique archivistique.
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