Ontario Tweedsmuir digitization project to continue due to LAC grant

Thanks to a $38,303 grant from Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program, the Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario (FWIO) will continue digitizing the Tweedsmuir Community History Collections.

Tweedsmuir History BooksAccording to FWIO, the Tweedsmuir Community History Books “capture and preserve local community history.”

The books often include a history of the local Women’s Institute branch, earliest settlers in an area, agricultural practices and individual farms, local industry, social institutions and public buildings, such as churches and schools.

Captured rural history
Lady Tweedsmuir, wife of Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada from 1935 till his death in 1940, suggested that Ontario Women’s Institute should keep local history books such as the Women’s Institute in England did. She felt this was a way to preserve the rural history which was being lost.

A campaign was begun in 1945 to have every branch prepare a history of its community. Not only was it to include the history of the branch, but also to go back to the earliest settlers, the early agriculture and industries, churches, schools and local personalities including war veterans. Within ten years, 989 branches had recorded their history.

Project stopped in 2015
According to a brief from FWIO, until last summer, the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) and FWIO had had an agreement to digitize the collections, and nearly 70 collections had been digitzed at the branch and district levels, primarily in Peterborough and Bruce Counties.

The project was stopped due to lack of funds. “In July 2015, the OGS and FWIO discontinued their agreement to digitize the Tweedsmuir Community History Collections, as the e-library did not materialize and funding has not been available for the past few years for further digitizing.”

Now, with LAC’s grant, the project has been resurrected. FWIO digitizing coordinator Irene Robillard said, “This grant is allowing us to create an online, searchable platform to load the documents previously digitized by the OGS, as well as digitizing a few more collections.”

Learn more about this project in the brief OGS shared in its February 27, 2016 e-newsletter. Read about the Tweedsmuir books here.

You can read about two other projects funded by the LAC Documentary Heritage Communities Program in Gaspé museum digitizing archives of Canada’s second oldest retailer and Eastern Townships historical archives to go online this spring.

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