Newly digitized Waterloo County, Ontario directories provide social and economic history of region

The Kitchener Public Library in Kitchener, Ontario announced it is in the midst of an important digitization project that will help genealogists whose ancestors lived in the region. The library has started uploading digitized historial gazetteers and directories for Waterloo County, and it promises “many more to come.”

The directories provide a detailed look at the social and economic history of the county. The General Index in some volumes, for example, indicates where to find a list of trades, schools, and residents within the pages.

A description of the township of North Dumfries in the 1864 edition reveals that 178 residents were from England and Wales, 1,227 were Scottish, and 122 were from the United States. That year, this rural community had 7,829 sheep, compared to only 242 bulls, oxen and steers.

It will likely come as no surprise that religion played a role in County of Waterloo schools in 1864.

Out of ninety-five schools in the County reported, it appears that the daily exercises of seventy of them are opened and closed with prayer; and that in seventy-eight of them, the Bible or Testament is read.

1864 County of Waterloo Gazetteer and Directory, pages VI and VII. Source: Kitchener Public Library, Kitchener, Ontario.

The library’s City and County Directories Digitization Project and the purchase of a book scanner in its Grace Schmidt Room have been made possible through the financial support of the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation and the Waterloo Region Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society in memory of Norma Huber, a long-time branch member and genealogist. Branch volunteers have devoted countless hours to scan, proof-read, and prepare the digitial files for uploading.

So far, the library has uploaded the following directories:

1864 County of Waterloo Gazetteer and Directory
1867 County of Waterloo Gazetteer and Directory
1878 County of Waterloo Gazetteer and Directory
1884-85 County of Waterloo Gazetteer and Directory
1885-86 Union Publishing Farmers and Business Directory: Counties of Brant, Halton, Norfolk, Waterloo and Wellington
1888-89 Union Publishing Farmers and Business Directory: Counties of Perth, Waterloo and Wellington
1896 Union Publishing Farmers and Business Directory: Counties of Halton, Waterloo and Wellington

Searchable
You can search the directories by name or keyword, using the search function on your computer: CTRL+F on PCs or Command+F on Macs. The directories are also easy to browse.

More volumes will be added online as they are proofed and optimized.

If there is a downside to these digitized directories, it is that the files on the library’s website are large and it can sometimes take a second or two to move from one page to the next. It is well worth the wait, however, for even the most impatient family historian.

Links to these directories can be found on the library’s Directories webpage.

For links to digitized Canadian directories, including the Waterloo County directories, visit the Genealogy à la carte Genealogy Research Toolbox.