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LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: Fonds
No.: PR1091
TITLE: Scott, Bisset, and McPherson family fonds
CREATOR: Scott, Bisset, and McPherson family
DATE RANGE: 1874-2010
EXTENT: 3.72 m of textual material. – 1378 photographs. – 132 negatives. – 40 slides. – 23 postcards. – 9 maps. – 1 audiocassette [30 min.]. – 1 videocassette [1 hr.]
ADMINISTRATIVE
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: The Scott, Bisset, and McPherson branches compose several generations of families in Edmonton dating back to 1893. The Scott and Bisset branches settled in Edmonton separately from Ontario, with various members of these branches working in industry, sales, finance, the United clergy, law, city council, and the military. Various family members have also been associated with the feminist and temperance movements. Two members of the family, Athelstan Bisset and Alexander Blair McPherson, have Edmonton public schools named after them.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY:The material was created and/or collected by multiple members of the Scott, Bisset, and McPherson families. The material was eventually brought together by Lorna McPherson, who arranged the records and donated material related to Athelstan and Mary Bisset in 1978 and 1981 and a large donation of material related to multiple branches of the family in 2010.
SCOPE AND CONTENT: The fonds consists of records created and/or collected by members of the Scott, Bisset, and McPherson families as well as related branches. The records include correspondence, diaries, clerical documents, family photographs, cookbooks, professional writings, and genealogical information. The records relate to such subjects as the domestic and professional lives of women across the 20th century; Albertan legal history; Albertan religious life and history; the evolution of public morality from the late 19th to the 21st centuries; the evolution of etiquette, entertainment, and home economics in the same period; and military records related to both the First and Second World Wars, including Canadian involvement in the armed forces and life on the home-front.
PHYSICAL CONDITION: The fonds includes an album made from birch bark and is very fragile.
ARRANGEMENT NOTE:

This fonds was the Athelstan and Mary Bisset fonds as the first two donations of material related specifically to the Bissets. The 2010 donation led to the expansion and renaming of the fonds.

Lorna McPherson acted as the family historian and personally collected and arranged the records herself. Her arrangement has been followed, with the addition of series. However, Lorna McPherson also added copious notes and descriptions to the records that provide a wealth of detail but also add a layer of commentary and meaning to the records that did not exist in the records’ original creation. Where possible, Lorna’s notes and comments have been preserved with the records or added to the file list titles.

The fonds has been arranged into five series as follows:
Series 0001: Mary (Scott) Bisset

Series 0002: Alexander Blair McPherson

Series 0003: Lorna (Bisset) McPherson

Series 0004: Athelstan Bisset

Series 0005: William James Scott

LANGUAGE NOTE: The material is in English with one item in Chinese.
ASSOCIATED MATERIAL: Some records which came to the Provincial Archives of Alberta as part of PR1978.0198 were transferred to the University of Alberta Archives (students’ handbooks, accession No. 79-13), and to the City of Edmonton Archives (Municipal reports and brochure, A 79-72).
RELATED SERIES: PR1091.0001 (Mary (Scott) Bisset series)
PR1091.0002 (Alexander Blair McPherson series)
PR1091.0003 (Lorna McPherson series)
PR1091.0004 (Athelstan Bisset series)
PR1091.0005 (William James Scott series)
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