Pumpkins & Pencils: Back to School with Primary Resources
Heading into the classroom is always exciting, and every year offers up new challenges. This year, teachers and students at every level are embarking on a learning experience like never before with the surge of AI tools and auto-generated resources. While harnessing that power will have its application, learning how to search, analyse and assess primary and legitimate sources is especially important for young students as they start into this amalgam world where the line between real and real-istic are blurred. Read more…
Online Collections for Research and Resources
Searching for your favourite sport, schools, family names, or social activities to find community based collection items like photos and yearbooks and vital statistics as well as primary materials like government documents, city directories, treaties and more. These collections are a goldmine for researchers of all ages. Read more…
Social ActivitiesMilitary HistoryFamily HistorySocietySchoolSports
Upcoming Events: See you there!
Join us at the 2025 Illinois Library Association Annual Conference, on Ontario Ancestors 2025 Webinar Series and at the 2026 Ontario Library Association Super Conference. Read more…
We love a good genealogical mystery. Here’s one that comes from Illinois, searching the Ontario collections, guest blogger Emily Bayma Santos, MLIS.
If you happened to ask most researchers how they came to their projects and experiments, they could most likely give you a straightforward answer. They perhapshad a single thought, a what-if moment, that drove them to push boundaries and learn a little bit more. They could be expanding on a previous line of inquiry. They were, possibly, just bored and it sounded fun. Sometimes, it’s all three, and that is how I became the principal investigator of the Carew One Name Study, registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies.
A one-name study, alternatively called a surname study, differs from traditional genealogy in that it researches the name itself. It can and does cross multiple family lines and continents. Such a study tracks not only the distribution of the surname (locations where the surname is concentrated) but can also attempt to reconstruct as many family lines as possible or identify a single origin location for the name. When I first started to seriously research my family about fifteen years ago, I had no idea people even did that, but I came to it the same way my predecessor did: trying to get over a genealogical brick wall through any means possible.
The original Carew One Name Study was begun by a woman named Joan A. Carew Richardson in the early 1970s and continued up until her retirement in the early 2010s. She regrettably passed away before I had the chance to speak to her myself, but when I re-registered the study in 2024 I received the bulk of her materials. For her, she wanted to find out where her Carew forename came from, and she traced it back to the family of her 2nd great grandmother, whose name was Eliza Carew. When she couldn’t make any further headway, she began casting a wider net and indexing any Carew individuals she came across. In time, she had amassed an enormous collection of people and pedigrees, registered her study, and assisted people worldwide with their own Carew families—but she never was able to trace hers any further. At last count, it totalled over eight thousand individuals organized into over a hundred family trees, enriched by parish registers, newspaper articles, and vital records. This material was donated to the Guild of One Name Studies, who digitized and preserved it so that the study could be continued later.
For me, the road started with Madeline Carew Immel, my second great grandmother, but it’s my eighth great grandfather who became the brick wall. When I couldn’t document his parentage, I began to look at contemporary Carew families he could conceivably belong to, and before long I had my own stack of family lines and individuals all linked by the name Carew. A fellow Carew researcher suggested that I look at the Guild of One Name Studies, and I took over the study started by Mrs. Richardson.
Even though Mrs. Richardson began Carew lines on five different continents, there’s still more to learn, and recent advances in digitization have really opened doors in those genealogical brick walls. With the help of the Ontario Community Newspapers search site , I have documented Carew families in Peterborough, St. Catharines, Lindsay, and Cobourg (a simple search for “Carew” brings back 3100 records, including full text news like the contemporary example on the left, plus photos, military records, and BMDs). The Peterborough and St. Catharines families have a common ancestor in Ireland, but I have not yet found a link with the Lindsay and Cobourg families. Chances are, they came from Ireland in the 1850s, as many families did, but which county?
Carew families can be found in Wexford, Waterford, Tipperary, and Cork during the 1850s. There were also families in just about every county in England as well as Spain and France. How closely are they related to the families in Peterborough and St. Catharines?
Until we can tell for sure, we’ll start by reading the newspapers, taking notes, and building the trees one puzzle piece—or one click—at a time.
Emily Bayma Santos is a librarian and genealogist in Illinois conducting the Carew One Name Study. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/eabayma/
AI is the topic of the year, for better or for worse. The AI large learning models (LLM) are sending bots and crawlers to sweep across the internet and pulling public content to feed the machines that are now informing everything from predictive text to scientific analysis, and is being exponentially employed for all matter of applications. It is a truly awesome development in human history. It is also destructive and is having universal impact on online resources large and small. Read more…
New Collections
The Whitestone Public Library collection is throwing opening a window into the history of families, farming, fishing and relaxing in the lakes and fields north of Parry Sound, Ontario. Read more…
Growing Collections
New Prince Edward/Hastings WI documents
The Prince Edward/Hastings branch of the Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario have digitized, reviewed and released another 70 volumes of Tweedsmuirs and other WI history, tracing current day back to the 1800s. These documents offer a host of family names, local events and activities, and reflect the unfathomable support these women provide to their communities.
More than 32,000 more pages of local papers are now part of the Wilmette Newspaper Index site, with issues of the Wilmette Life and Wilmette Beacon public and/or accessible through the library workstations. Dense with illustrations and local stories, the newspapers add to the larger story of the Greater Chicago area.
Winds of Change: IMLS defunding a giant blow to GLAM sector
It’s hard not to talk about politics in any industry these days and while we try to remain neutral and truly “politic”, ODW shares many of the feelings on both sides of the border about the defunding of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the US. It is difficult to imagine the effect of having a national institution so hastily removed from the landscape of culture, education and the communities it serves.
What does this mean for Libraries in the US? According to the FAQ on the American Library Association website, “The intent to undercut and eliminate the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is extremely shortsighted and perilous for the millions of Americans who rely on our public, school, academic, and special libraries. Library funding draws less than 0.003% of the annual federal budget yet has enormous impact in communities nationwide.”
The American Alliance of Museums is also responding with a letter from the AAM President as part their advocacy campaign, underlining the democratic nature of museums: “Museums are vital to American infrastructure, serve all people in states red and blue and communities rural to urban, receive significant support from Americans regardless of political party, and any threat to museum funding—including threats to the federal agencies that support museums—is a threat to their own communities.” Read more.
These organizations, as well as state library associations and their members, are issuing calls to action and standing up for a return to stable, socially responsible governance and support. In solidarity, we encourage everyone to back these efforts and advocate for the community and shared values of the GLAM sector on both sides of the border and internationally.
Cross-border history: Inland Seas Journal
The Inland Seas bulletin has been the cornerstone of the Great Lakes Historical Society since the organization first started in 1944. Thanks to the National Museum of the Great Lakes and their dedicated volunteers, these bulletins are now available online from 1945-2020, exploring the breadth of influence the Great Lakes have had across North America for centuries.
An essential research tool, the Inland Seas is fascinating view into the lake faring history shared by the US and Canada.
First Nations peoples and their territories span the continent and have since before any national borders were established. Settler families have migrated to North America and between the US and Canada for centuries. Ships, railways, highways, planes and more continuously traverse the boundaries. From genealogical records to exhibits, these stories are entwined and ever moving and the community collections offer so many ways to explore our shared histories…
The Gateway Theatre Guild is the oldest community theatre group in Northern Ontario. Established in 1948, the non-profit community theatre company in North Bay is sharing reviews, photos, programs and more. Explore the collection
Along the Canal: Welland People and Events
The Welland Public Library Genealogy Database is a researcher’s paradise, bringing more than 119,000 Birth, Death, Marriage, Adoption, Anniversary and Obituary notices and more from local newspapers, covering 1615 to current day. Explore the collection
Upcoming Events: Proudly Sponsored by ODW
Archives Association of Ontario
May 6-8, 2025
The AAO 2025 theme is Ebb and Flow: Narratives of Adaptability and explores how the path towards innovation and growth is rarely straightforward. #aao25conf
British Columbia Library Association
May 7-9, 2025
The BCLA 2025 theme is Navigating Together, reflecting how we can navigate our current reality of rapid change and complex challenges together, better than we ever could alone. Learn more
Atlantic Provinces Library Association
June 10-12, 2025
The APLA 2025 theme, Breaking Barriers aims to explore how libraries are challenging traditional boundaries, embracing innovation, and empowering individuals and communities. #APLA2025
Thanks to the support of our community and clients, 2024 was a terrific year, one that strengthened ODW’s position as a trusted organization and service provider. We expanded our Board and governance structure. We sidestepped the potential devastation of a cyber attack and hardened our systems against future threats. We’re engaging new staff and technology, making our foundations stronger than ever, and we are look forward to a promising 2025.
A good year for family history
Researchers rejoice! This year, VITA collections from organizations around North America have shown significant growth in genealogical records, article and other indexes in standalone collections and linked to local newspapers. The excitement around new items invites users to comment and contribute their own material to existing collections, sharing community stories and weaving new connections. We also saw the addition of new exhibits, books, diaries, and church records, postcards and photos, as well as audio and video recordings.
When we talk about building bridges, not only are we talking about physical connections, we’re also talking about connecting individuals with issues, identities, and ideas. When we build bridges, we build hope. ~Ontario Library Association
ODW is excited to be back at OLA Super Conference in 2025! We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new people, answering your questions, and demonstrating ODW’s products and services.
Visit us at our poster presentation “Bridging the Breach: Handling a Cyberattack” on the expo floor, Friday, January 31.
Drop by or book a meeting by emailing odw@ourdigitalworld.org
Some people say September is the new January – and it certainly feels that way in the ODW offices. This autumn has been a flurry of activity. The harsh reality of vinegar syndrome has meant that there is a real upsurge in digitization projects, so there are many recent additions to new and existing collections. Internally, our Board has grown and we’re happy to be working with such an incredible collection of people. As well, we’re looking forward to seeing everyone at some upcoming conferences, and excited about collaborating with CRKN to bring an improved set of Abolitionist newspapers online for better and wider access. Even though it’s fall, we’re celebrating a season of growth and so much to share.
There is a certain irony that a full eclipse was occurring over North America just as OurDigitalWorld was emerging from a long service outage.
Our own path of totality started February 25, the day – as chance would have it – we presented a live webinar about searching the digital newspaper collections. Thankfully all examples were screenshots, since all the online collections were unexpectedly returning blank error screens. The next day, we were told that we were caught in a massive system shut down at the City of Hamilton, Ontario in response to a cyber attack. Read more…
Updates from…
Community Newspaper Working Group
At the recent meeting of the Community Newspaper Working Group (CNWG), discussions centred around proposals from two newspaper companies, TorStar and PostMedia. Read more…
This is a guest post by Linda Calvert, a student in the Library Technician program at Mohawk College.
For the past few weeks, I have been helping OurDigitalWorld by researching and describing the history of the Ontario newspaper publications in the Ontario Community Newspapers collections. Community newspaper histories are embedded in local lore but not often described for outsiders, which was part of the challenge I was offered for my placement. The intention is to discover and compile more historical information for the Publication records in the database, by including a general description, publication relationships between titles, and date ranges, all to enhance access points for searching and browsing the already digitized community newspapers.
While working on this project, many of the records I was able to produce were fairly straightforward, but it came to our attention that there were some publications with fascinating histories. To find out more about one mysterious story, I spoke with Caroline Goulding, CEO at the Dryden Public Library, about the Dryden Observer and how the library uncovered the paper copies for digitization.
The early history of the Dryden Observer is not well documented, so is based mainly on the remaining physical copies and local lore. The earliest physical copy is dated 1902, but its predecessor, the Wabigoon Star, dates back as early as 1895. We do know that the Observer was published by Alex Wilson Publications and was sold to Northwest Publishing in 2015 or thereabouts. After a short but bumpy run, the paper suddenly ceased publication in 2019, the phones were shut off and the staff dispersed.
Fast forward to current day when the Library and Museum wanted to find, preserve and archive the print copies of the newspaper. Assuming the back copies would have been left behind by the Northwest Publishing staff, they talked to the new owner of the Observer building to gain access to the space – only to discover the papers were nowhere to be found! It seemed the Observer newspaper was lost in every possible way.
However, in another mysterious turn of events, when a local mini-storage owner was forced to repossess one of the sea cans on his lot he opened it up and discovered the missing issues. The owner knew that Dryden Public Library and Dryden & District Museum staff were looking for these papers, so he turned them over.
Most people’s first thought on hearing this is that the papers must have been irreversibly damaged over time and would have to be dismissed as garbage. This was not the case: No one knows who did it or when, but someone had had the foresight to wrap the back copy issues in cellophane before putting them into the storage container, ensuring that they were protected from bugs, critters and moisture.
As a result of this happy discovery, the Dryden Public Library and Dryden & District Museum is digitizing the earlier copies with the help of OurDigitalWorld and with funding from the Museum Assistance Program. Public domain copies from the 1880s to the early 1930s are openly available online, with later issues also available on workstations in the Library branch at https://vitacollections.ca/drydenarchives/search.
The illustrious sea can collection has delivered back a long-standing voice for the region. Only a few gaps remain in the earliest years, especially around World War II, but the run is complete from 1932-2019. The Library and Museum not only hopes the community might have some of the missing issues to fill those gaps, but that the last copyright holder might step forward and permit the rest of the collection to be made fully available to the public.
Meanwhile, the other newspaper publication histories we complied will be added to their related records and help document their relationships within and between communities.
Because of an ongoing cybersecurity incident at the City of Hamilton the OurDigitalWorld servers are currently offline. There is no evidence our servers have been compromised; the shut down is a protective measure.
As a result:
All sites – public and internal – are unavailable. That includes any site with the following domains: vitatoolkit.ca, vitacollections.ca, ourontario.ca and ourdigitalworld.org .
VITA sites with custom domains are also offline.
Please note: We are not receiving email. Any email to the ODW staff, info and help at @vitatoolkit.ca and @ourdigitalworld.org addresses starting Feb 25 and until further notice will not be received or responded to until this is resolved.
In the meantime, we will be monitoring the following temporary email: ourdigitalworldorg@gmail.com.
We are abundantly aware of the inconvenience this causes and thank you for your understanding and patience while the issue is investigated and resolved by the City of Hamilton’s dedicated IT team. We will continue to update this site as more information becomes available.
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