The committee memberships series includes minutes, protocols and reports reflecting Somerville’s work as a an expert in ethics on the Law Reform Commission of Canada, the Royal Victoria Hospital’s Research Ethics committee, Expert Advisory Committee to the Canadian Red Cross on Stored Serum Samples, the National Research Council Human Subject Research Ethics Committee, the World Health Organization, the World Jurist Association, UNESCO, the McGill Aids Centre, the Beatty Memorial Lecture, the NWMO, the OACG, the CCES, and the Colloquium on Transdisciplinarity.

The largest and most comprehensive series is conference papers and lectures with most of the presentations taking place in Canada, Australia and the United States, many with separate speech and shorter slide summaries. The subjects covered include AIDS, medical ethics, and euthanasia, and reflect the range of Somerville’s interest in ethical issues.

This series contains records of J.W. McConnell, and in some instances additional members of his immediate family, documenting their involvement in numerous fundraising and philanthropic works.

The records were divided into specific subseries (Hospitals and Health Care; Higher Education; War Efforts) to reflect the work of McConnell to meet the different needs of Montreal and communities abroad. The records consist of fundraising correspondence and requests from McConnell, photographs, artefacts, financial reports and statements from the McGill campaign and ephemera related to fundraising including a set of index cards that McConnell used to organize the McGill fundraising campaign. Specific fundraising inititatives include: McGill $5,000,000 Campaign, 1943/1944; Montreal Joint Hospital Campaign, 1927; Victoria Order of Nurses Pension Fund, 1944/1945; Victory Loan Campaign, 1917-1918; ‘Wings for Britain’ Campaign; and McConnell’s personal donation of $1,000,000 to create the McConnell Squadron of Royal Air Force Spitfires, 1941-1946.

The personal matters/family series is the most varied one, documenting family life through correspondence and photographs and personal life through awards and honours from both Canada and Australia. Also there are records reflecting her interest in cats and the art community, particularly the artist Jacques Deshaies.

Series B contains EKG and EEG studies for Dr. Herbert Jasper pertaining to gamma-amino-butyric acid. This series is comprised of 3 files (nos. 48 to 50), which are arranged chronologically.

The communications series chiefly reflects the public role of Somerville as an ethicist and researcher through a mixture of personal/professional correspondence, often with colleagues, invitations to events and greeting cards.