The Ottawa News and Times 1865-1877

Sitting on a trolley in the Canadian Genealogy Centre during my last visit was an unpublished manuscript, abstracts of birth, marriage and death announcements in the Ottawa News and successor Ottawa Times between 18 December 1865 and 8 January 1877. The copyright notice indicates the authors to be Joan McKay and Dolly Allen. It is dated July 2007.

The contents are organized in three sections, 32 pages of births, 33 pages of marriages and 120 pages of deaths, many of which date from before the establishment of the Ontario civil registration system. Each section is alphabetical by last name, with marriage entries under both bride and groom surnames.

Here are some sample entries:

REARDON. At Nepean on May 16 to Mrs Patrick REARDON, triplets - 2 girls, 1 boy. All well (May 18, 1866, p2, col7)

PATTERSON - ELLIOTT. At St. George`s church, Montreal on Nov 15 by Rev Canon BOND MA, Incumbent, James PATTERSON, Esq, Finance Dept, Civil Service, to Ellie daughter of Joseph ELLIOTT (Nov 24, 1866, p2, col 7)

LAFRANCOIS. At Lorette, Prov. of Quebec on May 18, Catherine AUDY, widow of the late Dominique LAFRANCOIS, Notary Public of that place and sister of J. H. Audy of this city, age 75 years (June 11, 1873, p2, col 7)

Some of the entries are surprisingly frank - froze to death while intoxicated.

The manuscript is catalogued as CS 88 ON 38 088 2007 fol. GENE Ref

I hope the authors can find a way to make this locally valuable resource more widely available.