"Tales of pioneer hardship and deprivation have been told many times. Yet still we remember in wonder, that people accomplished so much with so little; that men and women with simple tools, their bare hands, and their own inventiveness cleared the land, drained the swamps, made their own clothing and provided their own food. Through all these difficulties God was with them and they wanted their children educated intellectually and spritually." from Norfolk Street United Church history

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Halton County, Ontario Libraries Launch Digital Newspaper Archive





from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
Wednesday, March 16, 2011


The Halton Digital Newspaper Archive launched Wednesday. This new online resource is all about preserving community memory by indexing newspaper articles from the north part of Halton County, Ontario. The Archive builds on the indexing already performed by Halton’s public libraries but now provides much more convenient online access to community newspapers, an index previously available only on microfilm.

The work began with Halton Hills volunteer Marshall Neilson who entered births, marriages and deaths from the back files of the Acton Free Press. He started that work in 1984 and over the next 10 years added over 150,000 names from the Acton, Georgetown and Milton papers. Volunteers, staff and summer students have now contributed hundreds of additional hours to this index. The new database contains the index only, not images of the newspapers. Photocopies of the original articles are available by contacting the library that contributed the information to the index.

The Ontario Ministry of Culture honoured the project with the Angus Mowat Award of Excellence. The digitization of the back microfilm of the Acton and Georgetown papers was made possible through a $14,200 grant from the Ontario Genealogical Society: Halton-Peel Branch.

...read more story at Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter


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