Step-by-Step: Looking Up an Ancestor’s First World War Record
This is a step-by-step guide to accessing military records both through LAC’s website but also on-site.
Tag Archives: Local History
Active History on the Grand: Brantford Up-date
If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll notice that I talk a lot about Brantford, Ontario. Since completing my PhD in History from McMaster University I’ve been working as the Executive Director of the Canadian Industrial Heritage Centre (CIHC), a not-for-profit organization in Brantford dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Canadian industrial history and the establishment of a museum… Read more »
Remembering Francis: Sharing life and sharing the past
Over the past five years I have spent many Friday afternoons with Francis and the Club at L’Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill. Daybreak is a community that focuses on sharing life with people with different gifts and abilities; at its heart are men and women with intellectual disabilities. On Friday afternoons at the Club, a program for retirees, we often gather around the television screen to look at old community photographs. The members of the Club tell me stories about their past experiences, and I annotate the images in a digital database with the names of the people in the picture and the stories associated with them.
“Come On Over”: Call-In Collaborative History in Northeastern Ontario
When up in the Sudbury and Manitoulin areas for a quick research trip in mid-September, driving several hundred kilometres, I became well-acquainted with CBC Sudbury. On Morning North, there was a regular program by two Laurentian University professors conducting research for their upcoming book Come on Over: Northeastern Ontario A-Z. In what sounds like a cross between an encyclopedia and… Read more »
Toronto: A Proud Union City
This post discusses Labour Day walking tours.
Contextualizing G20 Policing in Toronto
A brief trip through Toronto’s 20th century past can show us two things: firstly, that police violence and arbitrary use of power has a long history in Toronto. More importantly, however, we see that citizen action can spur meaningful regulatory change. We can do something.
Colborne Street Breakdown II: Demolition and Community History
Colborne Street is the historic downtown of Brantford and by many accounts this stretch of buildings represents the longest stretch of pre-Confederation buildings remaining Canada, but Tuesday June 8th was a dark day for history, heritage and the city of Brantford.
Tormorden Fantasy
Toronto, known to some as The Big Smoke, has world class horrible traffic and at least a fair smattering of all your basic urban ills. The city that knows no hockey also has some unexpected lesser-known natural and historic charms.
Remembering and Commemorating a Complicated Past
In this post, I look at controversies surrounding a statue of Nellie McClung, due to her early-20th century support of eugenics.
Street History
Often the public face of history is seen in museums or government issued historical plaques; but important historical narratives also exist outside of these structures, and they often tell stories that otherwise remain obscure or hidden by more official ways of historical story telling. I call this way of sharing the past street history.