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Support the Collection
Family photographs, documents, objects, recordings, and everyday possessions can preserve histories that might otherwise disappear. Learn how to offer material to the Maltese-Canadian Museum.
Start Here
We welcome conversations with individuals, families, organisations, businesses, and community groups who hold material connected with Maltese and Maltese-Canadian history.
Please contact the Museum before bringing or sending any material. We cannot accept unsolicited drop-offs, and leaving an item at the Museum does not make it a donation.
Every potential donation is reviewed before it is accepted. An expression of interest does not transfer ownership, and accepted material becomes Museum property only after the appropriate donation process has been completed.
Contact Us About a DonationDonation Documents
We recommend reading the Donation Guidelines before contacting the Museum. The Deed of Gift is used later, after a proposed donation has been formally approved.
Public Guideline · MCM-COL-01
Read this document first. It explains what the Museum collects, how potential donations are assessed, what material may be declined, and what donors can expect from the process.
Public Form · MCM-COL-02
This legal document permanently transfers title to accepted material. Complete it only after the Museum has formally approved your proposed donation and instructed you to proceed.
How It Works
Tell us what you would like to offer and explain its Maltese or Maltese-Canadian connection.
Photographs, dimensions, names, dates, places, family stories, ownership history, and provenance can all help us understand the material.
The Museum considers significance, documentation, legal and ethical status, condition, relevance, duplication, and our capacity to care for the material.
Sometimes material needs to remain temporarily with the Museum for assessment. A Temporary Custody Receipt is used and ownership remains with the depositor.
The Museum may accept all, part, or none of an offer. A decision not to collect something is not a judgement on its personal or family importance, but is usually reflective of the Museum's capacity.
Once approved, the donor and an authorised Museum representative complete the Deed of Gift. The transfer becomes effective according to the terms of that deed.
Our Collecting Areas
We consider material with a meaningful and documented relationship to Maltese people in Canada, Maltese-Canadian community life, and the wider historical contexts needed to interpret those experiences.
Passports, tickets, correspondence, immigration and settlement records, employment material, sponsorship records, and objects carried or made during migration.
Clubs, businesses, parishes, schools, bands, societies, sports, festivals, mutual-aid organisations, and other community institutions.
Family photographs, albums, home movies, letters, diaries, certificates, genealogical material, oral histories, and personal objects with documented stories.
Dress, lace, tools, domestic objects, music, instruments, art, craft, language, folklore, souvenirs, commemorative material, and objects associated with everyday experience.
Religious objects, vestments, parish and confraternity material, feast-day objects, religious art, and records of Maltese religious life in Canada.
Documents, photographs, audiovisual material, maps, publications, ephemera, born-digital records, websites, and other digital material of enduring historical value.
Material relating to Malta, Gozo, and Comino may be collected where it contributes meaningfully to the interpretation of Maltese-Canadian history, identity, and memory.
Archaeological, palaeontological, geological, and natural-history specimens may be considered, but appropriate lawful provenance and export/import documentation may be required.
Important to Know
Accepted material becomes part of a collection that must be managed for the long term. The Museum therefore cannot promise that every donated object will always be displayed, digitised, published, or kept together.
Physical ownership and copyright are also separate. Donating an object does not automatically transfer copyright or related rights; those matters are addressed separately in the Deed of Gift.
The Museum does not provide monetary appraisals or authentications of proposed gifts.
Digital Donation Tools
We are developing tools that will make it easier for approved donors to prepare Museum forms electronically. Until then, downloadable PDF copies of the Donation Guidelines and Deed of Gift are available above.
Have Something to Share?
You do not need to know whether something is "museum-worthy" before contacting us. Send us a description, a few photographs, and whatever you know about the material and its history.