Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society

March 2019 meeting

Our next Toronto Branch meeting will take place on Monday, March 25 starting at 7:30 pm at Lansing United Church in North York.

In the 17th century, hundreds of young French women were recruited to immigrate to New France and help to populate the new colony. Who were they? You might be surprised. Speakers Dawn Kelly and Carol Ufford have been researching Les Filles à Marier and Les Filles du Roi and have some fascinating tales to tell. Join us for The Bachelorette New France: Stories of Bigamy, Incest, Witchcraft and Murder. Speaker notes will be available through our new Members Only web pages.

After our mid-meeting break, we’ll enjoy a short talk by Larry Foreman titled A Courtship through Postcards. As usual, the Members Network will be gathering in advance of the main meeting, starting at 6:15 p.m.

Lansing United Church is located two blocks south-west of Sheppard and Yonge, at Poyntz Avenue and Beecroft Road (enter from Poyntz). It’s a short walk from the Sheppard-Yonge subway station, which also links to frequent bus service. If you are driving, parking on local streets is free after 6:00 p.m., and there are pay parking lots close by. The few spaces in the church parking lot are reserved for visitors with accessibility needs.

Toronto Branch meetings are free to attend and open to all. Visit our Meetings page to find out more.

Maison Saint-Gabriel, museum and historic site in Pointe-Saint-Charles, Quebec, purchased in 1668 to house Les Filles du Roi. (Photo: Carol Ufford)

House of Industry records revealed

In the chill of a Toronto winter in 1859, 31-year-old Catharine Allen had two young children, was heavily pregnant with her third, and had been deserted by her husband. Ann McClauliff, a 66-year-old widow, had survived by selling fruit from a basket in the summer but could no longer make a living in the cold weather. William Pellett, just 6 years old, had been picked up by the Police Magistrate because his parents had been sent to jail for a month. And 45-year-old Jane Cummings lived in a “horrid den” with her two young sons and her husband, disabled by an old leg injury that would not heal because of his “excessive intemperance”.

All four of these vulnerable Torontonians ended up seeking help from the House of Industry.

As part of our 50th anniversary celebrations in 2017, Toronto Branch funded the digitization of a major portion of the House of Industry fonds at the City of Toronto Archives—a rich source of information on the individuals and families helped by the institution from the 1830s to the early 1900s. The digitized volumes include both printed books and handwritten manuscripts, and are available to view now through the Internet Archive.

A dedicated team of Branch volunteers has been busy creating verbatim transcriptions which will make the handwritten manuscripts fully searchable and, as a result, much more accessible to researchers. The first of these transcriptions, covering 1855–1859, is now complete and posted online.

Find out more about the fascinating and often heartbreaking stories of the House of Industry, how to explore them online, and how to help to transcribe more of them, on the Toronto Branch Projects blog.