A couple of years ago, a friend told me about a somewhat quirky website, called Cornwall Roots. It was filled with thousands of old obituaries from Ontario, Quebec, and New York, and photos of headstones. I liked the site so much, I blogged about it.
I wasn’t the only one who liked this gem of a site. Thousands of genealogists read my blog post, More than 100,000 Ontario, Quebec & NY obits and headstones online at Cornwall Roots, and it became my most popular one in 2016.
Unfortunately, the owner of the site shut it down earlier this year.
Cornwall Roots contained images of more than 31,000 obituary notices that were published in Cornwall, Ontario newspapers from 1900 to 2008 and photos of almost 60,000 headstones in 123 cemeteries in 11 counties in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec. (I could only find 93 cemeteries.)
There was also a list of more than 20,000 obits that were published in Massena, New York, without images.
‘Cornwall Obituaries,’ January 1900. Source: Cornwall Roots, http://www.cornwallroots.info.
In response to my question on the Vintage Cornwall Archives Facebook group about what happened to Cornwall Roots, people’s comments suggest the owner was no longer willing or able to maintain the site, and he didn’t want to turn it over to anyone else.
Most of the people who commented on the Vintage Cornwall Archives group and also on the Ontario Genealogical Society Facebook group, where I had posted my original inquiry, didn’t know for sure what happened, and some prefaced their comments with, “I’ve heard that.”
The Ontario Genealogical Society, however, did try to save Cornwall Roots.
The society wrote Tuesday on its Facebook group, “Back in early April 2018, OGS approached the owner as we have with other sites with an offer of free hosting and long term preservation. The owner declined our thoughtful offer.”
Thanks to Brenda G who wrote a comment on my original blog post about Cornwall Roots to let me know the link no longer worked.
Check the “wayback machine” for archived pages https://archive.org/web/
Good reminder to copy source material, with credit to original sources, to own hard drive as longterm backup…
I have wondered what happened to Cornwall Roots and frankly have a difficult time understanding why the owner would not like the OGS host it. Unfortunately, I did not copy source material and only put the link on my tree. Painful lesson learned.
Thanks for the information, Gail.
Visit the Wayback Machine and save the items on your computer.
I believe the site was taken down once before because the owner was unhappy with people taking his photos and posting them on other websites.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Vintage.Cornwall/files/ has many of the pdf documents.
Perhaps the owner could be gently persuaded to gift the content to an archive or library? Especially located in Cornwall Ontario?