The following exceprt is from the November 26, 2011 edition of the St. Thomas Times-Journal.
If you ever lived in rural Elgin county [Ontario], a snapshot of who you were, where you lived and what your community was like, will live on at the Elgin County Archives.
A donation Friday of $6,000 from the Elgin branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society to continue digitization of Elgin county Women’s Institute Tweedsmuir History Books will permit resumption of work that ended in 2007.
At that time, more than 50 volumes of Elgin County Tweedsmuir History Books were digitized.
“They represent the farm women contributions to their communities,” Jean Bircham, treasurer of the Elgin County Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society said.
“They were compiled in sections where these women lived. They are pictures and stories of the families and farms and people that lived in the area and they are invaluable for people who are doing family research and local history on various such as the cheese factories.”
These records would contain elements such as family photos, pictures of homesteads and maybe local businesses in the area, Bircham said.
“You would find pictures of the family farms, pictures of the families, people who worked on those farms,” she said.
People doing family history research find the records a valuable tool, Bircham said.
Good to see this article being posted to your site, Leland.
If you want to read more about it, go to
It is so good to see the OGS helping archives to finish the project.
Elizabeth