What's New - April 1, 2023
New Book Coming - The Murray Canal
This follows on from the last "What's New" and brings us to a book about "The Murray Canal". The content is largely together and options for publishing are being considerd. No timeframe yet but something to look forward to.
Genealogy Stuff
Archives - Newspaper Clippings
Recently a fascinating project came my way from the Brighton Digital Archives. They obtained a collection of newspaper clippings from the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s that were pasted onto the pages of a hotel register book. The pages had been photocopied and were on tabloid-size paper. Some pages have WWI articles exclusively but may others have literally dozens of small newspaper clippings from all sorts of newspapers, but each dealing with a birth, marriage, death or other event regarding a person or family in the Brighton area. For an avid genealogist, this collection is a gold mine and I set to work reaping the benefits. At this time I am about half way through taking each article out of the scanned page and adding the info into my data, or adding the person or family if possible. This collection, once processed, will have updated my data considerably re people living in Brighton and area in the ealry decades of the 1900s. Lots more to come from this.
Hilton WI Quilt 1938
Another archiving project I am working on is related to a quilt that I saw at the United Church a while ago. It was created by the Hilton Womens' Institute in 1938 in tribute to folks who were moving away. The squares on the quilt have names of local residents written in, not siguatures, but the names written in dark ink, all by the same person. As with the newspaper items, I see a name and I look into my data to see if it is there, if so, I add this reference, if not, I work to determine who it is and how to get them into my data, of course under my rules of a required connection. This process has added good info for people up into the time period of the 1930s, which is mostly new information. Thanks Hilton WI!
Flindall in Brighton
Someone asked about a recent Flindall in Brighton and this caused me to look at the data on this name. It turns out there was lots to add re the specific Flindall folks who came over from the canal area of Murray Township to Spring Valley, north of Brighton in 1880. Now, this group is much more documented in my data, up to recent times.
Arkinson or Atkinson or Brighton
A project to collect the history of a certain house in Brighton led to the development of the family that is well known as Atkinson but actually began as Arkinson. William Atkinson was a prolific builder in Brighton in the later 1800s and early 1900s, known for building many of the first cottages on Presqu'ile Point. His daughter, Mayme, is well remembered as the proprietor of the General Store in the community of homes and cottages east of the dock and pavilion, well into the 1960s. Much more for these folks is now in my data.