In the summer of 1903, Toronto had a party—a four-day blowout over the Dominion Day holiday—July 1 to 4. The organizers invited well over 4,000 former Torontonians to “come home” from all across Canada, the United States, and wherever else the organizers could find them. A souvenir edition of the […]
John W. Kerr was a Fisheries Overseer for the Canadian government from 1864 to 1888. Kerr travelled through many parts of the Ontario for his work. The fifteen volumes that record his experiences and the people he met are at the Royal Ontario Museum and have now been digitized by […]
My research for this post is centred on a series of journals and letter books compiled by John W. Kerr, a Fisheries Overseer for the Canadian government from 1864 to 1888. Kerr travelled through many parts of the Ontario for his work. The fifteen volumes that record his experiences and […]
September of 2023, due to the rerouting of what seemed like every public transit vehicle in Toronto, I found myself waiting for a bus across the street from this row of houses. Unloved and untended for at least the past few years, they still had a sort of solid dignity. […]
Those of us with Toronto ancestors are pretty lucky. This big place provided businesses with all sorts of potential customers—in large enough numbers that made it worthwhile for publishers to compile lists of residents who might be induced to make a purchase. A city directory let the Fuller Brush salesman […]
If you wanted to acquire land in Upper Canada, there was a process or path to follow. The essential steps were the same, but depending on who you were, your particular circumstances, and where the land was situated, the path and the settler’s experience could be quite different. The key […]
This is the second of a series of posts about Township Papers—an important set of early Ontario land records—arranged alphabetically by township and sometimes town. You’ll find the first post here. This record group, RG 1-58 from the Archives of Ontario, is big—72 metres of paper records, microfilmed on 541 […]
This is the first in a series of posts about an important set of records for Crown Land research, Township Papers. Think of it as a conveniently organized gateway into the massive collection of Crown Land records at the Archives of Ontario. It may be a gateway, but it is […]