Update on Ontario Tweedsmuir Histories

Last Monday in Arnprior at a meeting of Patrick's Family History Group I had the chance to speak with Irene Robillard who told me how busy she's been writing grant proposals. As well as being involved with the Arnprior McNab/Braeside Archives Irene serves as Digitizing Coordinator with the Federation of Women’s Institutes of Ontario.

She mentioned that one of the proposals was regarding Tweedsmuir Histories. We didn't have time to discuss that in any detail.

Background on the situation and plans is in the latest OGS weekly newsletter (free subscription here). Here's that update:

In July 2015, the OGS and FWIO discontinued their agreement to digitize the Tweedsmuir Community History Collections, as the e-library did not materialize and funding has not been available for the past few years for further digitizing. With this project, nearly 70 collections were digitized at the Branch and District levels, primarily in Peterborough and Bruce Counties, as well as the Provincial level Tweedsmuirs and the Home and Country newsletters.
The project, however, is still alive. The Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario (FWIO) continued to look at other means to continue digitizing. I am happy to report that we received a grant in December through the Documentary Heritage Communities Program. This grant is allowing us to create an online, searchable platform to load the documents previously digitized by the OGS, as well as digitizing a few more collections. This grant is to be completed by March 31 (4 short months) and we are just beginning to load the platform, starting with the Home and Country newsletters. All will not be loaded by March 31st.
FWIO is applying for further funding through this program for further digitizing. So progress is being made. In the meantime, there is a chart is on our website (fwio.on.ca) listing all the branches, past and present, and the location of the Tweedsmuir collections, where known. This chart is in the pull-down menu under Tweedsmuir and is updated on a regular basis - pdf. If you monitor our website, there should be an announcement of the new platform around March 31st, if not before.