Access to the Toronto Star Archives is available for free until May 31. The last time a similar offer was made, it was for two days — and I was bleary-eyed at the end of it.
The usual cost to access the archives is $9.95 per week, $19.95 per month, or $149.95 per year. Yes, I know $9.95 is not expensive, but I’m a genealogist and, unlike he who golfs, I look for ways to save money.
Even if your ancestors did not live in Toronto, it is worth taking a look at this archival collection. I’ll explain why.
Out of curiosity, I looked in the Toronto Star Archives for any mention of my ancestor Robert Young who was fatally injured on the job.
His death record indicated he had been scalded in a railway accident on November 5, 1908 and died a week later on November 12 in Belleville, Ontario where he lived. I assumed the accident took place in a rail yard and wasn’t newsworthy. Still, I figured it would do no harm to browse the pages of the Toronto Star from November 5 to 14 to see if there was any mention of the incident. (Searching for Young would have produced too many results.)
I was stunned to see this headline on the front page of the Star on November 6:
Two Men Were Killed in Wreck on G.T.R. 〈Grand Trunk Railway〉 . . .
The Injured. Robert Young. Inspector of pumps, Belleville.
The accident had taken place in Bowmanville, east of Toronto, and the magnitude of it made front-page news.
On November 12, the Star ran another story about the accident:
Third Victim Dies as Result of G.T.R. Wreck near Bowmanville.
This follow-up article reported on how the accident occurred, his injuries, and his work history with the Grand Trunk.
For me, the best way to save articles is to clip each one, using the Snipping Tool on my computer, which I downloaded for free. The resolution of the clipped article is not perfect, but the text is legible.
So, yes, I will be taking advantage of this free-access offer once again. There will be no drinking chilled Chardonnay on a Montreal terrasse for me this week.
Start your search here.
Dear Gail,
When I went to the site it requires a ProQuest login rather than registering with the archives. I did not see how to get a ProQuest login- when I clicked on login it presumes one already has a ProQuest account. I would like to share this with others so I wanted to walk it through first. What am I doing incorrectly? Thank you
Jan Meisels Allen
When you go to the link provided in this blog post, fill in a word. I did this, and it works well.
thank you
Jan
Great resource! My first search for Argos between 1945 & 1946 found a few references to my Dad who played for the Toronto Argos those years when they won the Grey Cup.
BTW: I found there was no need to login at all.
That’s great news! The Toronto Star is a wonderful resource. One thing that is especially helpful are the reports of court proceedings, especially divorces. A search for a date range and the word Osgoode can yield very good results. Add the surnames if they are reasonably uncommon. I am lucky; while I don’t live in Toronto proper my local library has a subscription to the Toronto Satr and Globe and Mail archives. There is a link from my library’s website and my library card gives me access at home. Others may wish to ask if their library subscribes and if they allow only on-site access or can they research from home.
I’m having problems logging in too. I registered with my name & e-mail, and typed in a name to seach. It’s saying that I need to buy accesses to see the articles.
In the Format, try choosing the second one, Toronto Star Images, January 1894 – December 2011. That is what I have been doing, without any problems..
Do you live in Canada, Debbie? If not, I wonder if that is the issue, i.e., the service has been made available in Canada only.
Yes, I’m in Canada. Actually, Jan Allen’s suggestion worked for me. Thank you both.
I’m trying to find BATES, BUCK, MILLER & DEVLIN.
Keep in mind that OCR (optical character recognition), which makes it possible for us to do a key word search of scanned documents, does not always read words clearly. I have sometimes found “Dever” as “Dover” and “Deven.” When I looked at the original, I realized how easy it was for the OCR to misread the name.
I live in the US and I was able to log-in after you replied. I had gone down where it said to log-in and that was the problem as that takes the user to ProQuest–If you click where you said and then go search, then when the search opens, go to “page image pdf” and not login it works fine.
Jan Meisels Allen
Glad to hear it works in the US too — provided you don’t attempt to log in. Thanks!
Some of my ancestors died in the Toronto area but haven’t been able to find anything. Their last name is Kitchen, so all I get are ads for apartments, etc!
I have some friends in Arkansas named Kitchen. Are you interested in knowing about them? I went to school with Gwen many years ago.
Mary oregonlady55@hotmail.com
I have trouble finding the word I am searching for due to the hightlight not showing up on the page. Is anyone else having trouble with this?
Sometimes the highlighted word can be hard to find and we must take a closer look at the page, column by column to find our keyword. In my case, the rose-coloured highlights have appeared, although they are small.
I couldn’t open the link on my iPad (Safari could not open the page because the server could not be found). However, it opened and works fine on Safari on my Mac laptop. Perhaps there is an issue with some devices.
I’ve tried to look up some obits (ranging from 1954-2014) and not found a single one. Do you know if obits can be searched through this page? Thanks
Yes, obits can be found in the Toronto Star Archives. The challenge is that many obits are printed in the first or last column and are sometimes difficult to scan. Other times, the first name appears on one line and the last name appears on the next, making it difficult to do a word search. When I have exhausted the keyword search, I browse the obits, day by day.
What a wonderful gift to us amateur geneologists.(spelling ?) Thank You Toronto Star. I am in Kelowna B.C. Canada and had no trouble logging on. As an ancient senior who is computer challenged I am having trouble finding where the name I am searching is located . Is it always on the page listed in my search? Or can it be on the one of the following pages? I understand the OCR issue so I can not be too mentally challenged.
I found an article about my oldest son who passed away five years ago. What a treasure to find something like that article!! I also found another article about my younger brother.
In my experience, the name I am searching appears on the page you click on. The name or word is usually highlighted in dark pink, but it is not easy to see.
I must also be colour blind~ mine is bright orange. So far no trouble finding the highlight!
Too funny, Carol. I just checked again. On my computer, the colour remains pinkish. LOL I also noticed that before clicking on a page, you can hide the highlighting, which is useful when clipping an article to your files.
More laughs from my research~one page of classified had no highlighted versions of my maiden family name~I searched for what I could not see~ It must have been Miss Neigh a horse in the fifth race ~
Thank you for answering my questions so promptly. Once I learned how to do everything I now have viewed all 290 pages that showed up in my search. In addition to the articles I found I have received a multitude of websites to checkout and most of all I have a deeper appreciation of my ancestors for the hardship, tragedies and deaths of young children they all endured as they searched for a better place on earth ~ be it Canada, Australia, or U.S.A. I hope my children’s, children will read my family history collection and also feel a bit of gratitude for the ones that chose Canada. I personally remembered the polio epidemic and my mothers efforts to keep us safe. Was it not a Canadian Jonas Salk who developed the vaccine? Our family had first hand Knowledge of the devestation it caused to some. My silver memory may be wrong but was it not a Canadian Mr. Banting who developed insulin. Several of my ancestors would not have lived but for insulin. As I point out to my children they & I would not have been born if my grandmother had not had insulin.
WOW I figured out how to hide the highlights all by myself. I found it delayed me so decided to copy them with the highlights.
Thank you again~ now I know what to ask Santa for~ a six month subscription to “the Toronto Star Archives”
Super!
I discovered the Snipping Tool about a year ago and I love it! I use it daily! I like that it has highlighting ability.