Month: April 2022

What’s on the Horizon for G & DHS?

Glencoe & District Historical Society

K.W. Beecroft, President, G & DHS. Dated April 20, 2022

Our April 20th Members Meeting represents G&DHS’s 44th anniversary. A wonderful achievement for our organization.

With Covid 19 hopefully on the decline, we hope to move ahead with Program ideas and initiatives that will be informative and educational for our members and the public. We plan to have at least four or five member’s meetings and several events, which has been mentioned that we normally attend or sponsor annually. Hopefully, we can also present an “Open House” event where we can invite people in, and see what we’re about.

We also intend to broaden our relationships with other area historical organizations, and participate and promote events of common interests. Just recently, on April 2nd G & DHS was featured in a presentation sponsored by the London/ Middlesex Genealogical Society. We are also pleased to be involved with Backus Page House. Certainly, the Wardsville Museum and Ekfrid Museum are also close partners. 

During this past year, we have reached out to the Lower Thames Conservation area, in order to promote preservation of historic buildings in their care, and also to support restoration efforts of the Fugitive Slave Chapel in London. We will continue efforts into this year toward heritage preservation.

One special Project which we have planned in partnership with the Municipality of Southwest Middlesex, is the manufacture and installation of standardized Cemetery Signs within the municipality. These signs will outline to the public the name of area cemeteries and when they were established. We intent to sign the forgotten ones also, so that our pioneer ancestors will be remembered.

We hope that our volunteer sub-committee will move forward with cataloging and inventorying. We will continue to work with standardizing our approach to the handling and storage of archival material. These activities are viewed as being an activity to be focussed on in the coming year with the involvement of our members.

In closing, the 2021/ 2022 year was full of challenges, but we look forward to continuing in the coming year.

The Archives in Glencoe, Ontario, Canada

Many thanks to the Municipality of SWM

Glencoe & District Historical Society

K.W. Beecroft, President, G & DHS. Dated April 20, 2022

The ARCHIVE – G&DHS and Municipality of Southwest Middlesex have an agreement for the use of the facility at 178 McKellar Street. This has proved to be a very positive arrangement for both parties involved. There is room for G & DHS meetings, restoration workshop, a sales area, an office, stacks for books, documents and artifacts along with special collections, microfilm library, and archival space for artifacts. Key also for the move is that the precious property records again make their home in the original Registry Office, which we now call “The Vault”. 

Our new facility allows us to host educational Program activities onsite, as we now have everything available –access, washrooms, seating capacity and parking. We are also pleased to say that we share our facilities with other community organizations, on a revenue neutral basis. Organizations such as local cemetery boards, such as Oakland and Eddie, and Southwest Middlesex’ “Celebrate Community Committee” conduct their routine members’ meetings at 178 McKellar Street.

Information Technology Report

Glencoe & District Historical Society

for G&DHS general meeting 2020 – 2022

Aim: To plan for and manage the digital information and on-line applications owned by G&DHS. 

Domain:  Social media apps; Google Workspace; digital archives; on-line privacy and security.

Circle of volunteers includes: Tyler Thomson, Colin Varga, Mary Simpson, Ayako Macdonald, Ken Beecroft, Harold Carruthers, Angela Foreman–Bobier, Ryan Tuer, Marie Williams-Gagnon, Richard Hathaway, and more.  Thank you everyone for all you do.  

The goal for 2023 is to get better organised, establish policy and procedures, and include more people in the work of heritage preservation and the objects of the historical society.  This report prepared by Mary Simpson, for Annual General Meeting, Apr 20, 2022, Glencoe & District Historical Society. 

In-House Administration

Glencoe & District Historical Association has set up its own private and secure Google Workspace which allows our volunteers to have access to many Google tools.  

We are sharing these tools and workspaces with Your Wardsville to see how G&DHS can support collaboration and communication among local community groups. 

Everyone now has their own email address:   The President, Ken Beecroft, is the recipient of the front office email via: contactus@glencoehistoricalsociety.ca  

Social Media: meeting up with the World

Cardinal rule of social media: read, listen, and then engage.  Social media is a polite conversation.  

Glencoe & District Historical society website;  http://glencoehistoricalsociety.ca/   

Our FaceBook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/glencoehistoricalsocietyca/  A great place to promote the work of our fellow groups.  Marie Williams has started posting content.  Harold Carruthers and Ken Beecroft, President, are doing a great job monitoring the questions and comments coming to the Facebook Page.  

Our Eventbrite Page to promote events

Our FaceBook Events page to promote events.

Our Google Map Page: where to find us. 

Our YouTube Channel:  where we upload and curate our video content.

Preserving digital records online

We are pleased to be collaborating with Middlesex Centre Archives.  

Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/my-cemetery/search?page=1#sr-2562231  Ken Beecroft is a super Find a Grave contributor.  It’s a great hobby for many people.  

Our Cemetery List and Interactive google Map.  

Ancestry.ca.   We have a public account that anyone can use and so does the Glencoe Library.  

History Pin: https://www.historypin.org/en/  A cool app for curating collections of pictures from our archives.  Also, we can upload walking and driving tours.  

On this Spot: https://onthisspot.ca/cities/middlesexcounty  Middlesex County.  We are promoting this project by local historian Michael Baker and the Elgin County Museum.

https://archive.org/  Internet Archive, a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites.  This is the place where we think we can store important reports and document.  

Gathering Our Stories

Our goal is to build a story gathering pipeline.  Working with a team of people from our community and the  Tyrconnell Heritage Society, we are digitally recording personal stories that relate to our local Canadian history. In particular, aim to collect local stories that help explain the past 100 years of Canadian history – which happens to be a required course for Grade 10 students in Ontario.  If you are interested in participating please fill out the form at this link: I have a story to tell.  

Phase One: We recorded three stories from Al McGregor, and short stories from Ina Nelms and Don Webster.  These were submitted to the Oral History project run this winter by the Tyrconnell Heritage Society. 

Phase Two:  Work out a process for story collection, describing, organizing, and uploading online. Collaborate with Tyrconnell Heritage Society.

Report prepared by Mary Simpson, for Annual General Meeting, Apr 20, 2022, Glencoe & District Historical Society.