North Frontenac Historical Society and Archives

Brenda Martin | May 06, 2020

The events for North Frontenac Historical Society & Archives that involve community gatherings are on hold, but there is much being done from the home of the Board and Committee members. The organization has applied for Charitable status designation and this was no easy task when it had to be completed on- line (150+ pages).

The Cemetery project “Unravelling History- One Tombstone at a Time” sponsored by Community Foundation for Kingston & Area (CFKA) has moved into Phase Two and we will tell you about that in a later column. Last summer, in Phase One, the researchers assessed each of the 13 cemeteries in North Frontenac. A survey form provided by the Ontario Genealogical Society was completed. Some of the aspects described were: the location with a 911 address, a geographical description of the landscape, the number of tombstones and markers, composition of the tombstones, features within the cemetery (such as benches, crosses, plaques), the condition of each tombstone, the first interred, the last interred, groupings (such as family, religion, ethnic). These forms were presented to the OGS and the Township at the end of the summer. In addition to the info requested on the form, the researchers mapped the layout graphically and with a drone (Aerial Highlands, Makayla Parks). Background photos and a historical summary for the cemetery were prepared. Most tombstones were cleaned before taking photos of them. The tombstone info was transcribed and uploaded to the website. As you can image the data was massive!

This resulted in the need for a new website with “links’ to our previous posted material called Archives and Virtual Tour. Although the summer student got a great start on the website, NFHSA required many more hours of technical work to make the Cemeteries & Genealogy section finalized. Throughout this year, Mac from Ryerson University (former co-op student of NAEC) and Jason (last year’s summer student) have continued with part-time work to help NFHSA post the data that was collected. Eight of the cemetery sections have been completed (except for drone maps to be added) and three others have partial info such as the Home Page. The last cemeteries to be uploaded are: Harlowe, Dempsey, Ompah and Plevna. By the end of April, NFHSA hopes to celebrate the launch of the expanded website. Watch for the ad in this paper.