Wellington County Museum and Archives
Ontario covers a vast area and I swear my ancestors lived in most of it! It would take more than one or two research trips to explore all the potential repositories of information about my family's past. The OGS conference that I attended was in Guelph so I plotted a research trail in Southwestern Ontario which took in various places where my ancestors lived.
McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph
There was a distinct Scottish flavour to the family members who made it this far west in Ontario. The conference was held at the University of Guelph and as its McLaughlin Library is noted for its Scottish collections, it was a natural place to start. The library also has a great deal of information about the places where the Scots and others settled in Ontario. I spent many an hour looking for books in the stacks and trawling through microfiche and microfilm to find official Ontario records related to landholdings and voting rights. They also have a new archive area where you can access their special collections after ordering them online. The McLaughlin Library holdings can be searched at https://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/.
Early on in my trip, I looked up information on the death of Ann Ross Matheson online. I was surprised to find an entry for her buried in Leith Cemetery on Find a Grave. Granted, her husband, Kenneth Matheson, is buried there but I somehow doubt that Ann's body is there as she died about 20 years before he did when they were living in Puslinch, which is a far distance from Leith. I dropped in to the Archives which are in a building behind the museum. The staff there were very helpful with my quest to find Ann's gravesite but there was no eureka moment, unfortunately.
Wellington County Museum and Archives
Just a wee bit north of Guelph, in the town of Fergus is the Wellington County Museum and Archives. The exhibits were worth a look. The museum is in the former poorhouse and one of the exhibits was about the life of the inmates there. It didn't take much, just a little misfortune in the days before social networks and there you were in the poorhouse for the rest of your days.Early on in my trip, I looked up information on the death of Ann Ross Matheson online. I was surprised to find an entry for her buried in Leith Cemetery on Find a Grave. Granted, her husband, Kenneth Matheson, is buried there but I somehow doubt that Ann's body is there as she died about 20 years before he did when they were living in Puslinch, which is a far distance from Leith. I dropped in to the Archives which are in a building behind the museum. The staff there were very helpful with my quest to find Ann's gravesite but there was no eureka moment, unfortunately.
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