This has been a very busy & active year for the Archives Committee. Our primary focus has been the continuation of documenting and photographing the artifacts in the holdings of Whitewater Historical Society, housed in the five buildings at Ross Museum as well as the display at the office of the Township of Whitewater Region in Cobden.
Committee member Conrad Boyce has spearheaded the project of capturing this information with the help of four regular transcribers and several back-up folks. We have completed the inventory of the artefacts portion of our holdings but yet to do the archival holdings. This is estimated to be a two to three year undertaking, however Conrad and his team have provided a great boost in the start-up. Unfortunately for our community, Conrad and his wife are relocating out of the county. We thank Conrad for all his contributions and wish the Boyce’s all the best.
Next steps:
- Entering the gathered information and photographs into our museum data software ‘Past Perfect’ (several thousand entries & photos). There is a bit of a learning curve involved in using the software, but we would certainly welcome your assistance if you are so inclined.
- Preparing archival holdings for inventory/scanning/photographing
- Repeating the inventory process for the archival holdings
- Committee members have also been involved with other aspects of archival work:
- Meeting with members of the museum committee and curator to review new & stored acquisitions.
- Responding to / assisting a number of researchers looking for information on their Whitewater Region ancestors.
- Reviewing new and old holdings for their historical linkage to a specific location or family. Several recent additions to the Archives include softball scorebooks for women’s & men’s teams in Beachburg, once owned by Bing Ross; a scrapbook of old newspaper clippings compiled by Mrs. Martin of Beachburg and donated by her son Earl; a framed memorial poem dedicated to Charlie Roberts who was killed in WWI to name a few.
- Assisting with the training and operations of our summer students. Many thanks to Rachel & Noah, for all their contributions to the organization and documentation of the Library & Archives this summer.
- Posting articles & photos related to the history of our Region on the Ross Museum Facebook page. If you have anything you think would be of interest, send it along.
I’m sending out a plea for volunteers who would be willing to share their talents in data entry of accession records into the new software; or sorting and organizing donated information/documents; or video editing; or scanning photographs; or editing/writing stories from compiled information. Please contact Fay at the information below. The Archives are open during non-summer months by appointment by contacting Fay Bennett by email ([email protected]) or phone (613-646-7152) or Joanne Pratt by email ([email protected]) or phone (613-646-7634).
Sincerely,
Fay Bennet, Archivist
