This fonds contains information gleaned by the author in the summer of 1996 from typed notes of the handwritten Annals of Notre Dame Academy, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, which were originally written in French. The first section of the book is comprised of diary entries from 8 November 1863 to 10 December 1910. It includes information about individual students, enrollment statistics, examination dates, gifts from the community, visitors, marriages of former students, and events in the Convent and the community at large. The second section is a registry of the enrollment in an organization in the School called the Children of Mary. Although enrollment was not compulsory, it is believed that most students did join. The registry gives the students' names alphabetically within the year, presumably of enrollment. A second column gives information as to married or religious name and a third gives a community name. It is uncertain whether the latter is the community from which the child came or her later address.
The Notre Dame Academy, first known as St. Ann's School, was founded in 1857 to provide young girls in the parish of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, an education coupled with moral and religious training. Run by the sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, it began in a house donated by Daniel Brennan on the corner of Weymouth and Sydney streets and was funded by tuition fees and the generosity of parishioners. The last graduation from the convent school was on 13 June 1971.
