Genealogy of a Parish: The 19th Century Records of St. John's Anglican Church
Type of Proposal
Visual Presentation (Poster, Installation, Demonstration)
Faculty
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty Sponsor
Dr. Adam Pole
Proposal
We used the St. John’s Anglican Church records housed in Leddy Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections to research Sandwich, Ontario’s church community as a microcosm of the greater Detroit River region. We examined the church’s Marriage, Baptismal, Confirmation, and Death records from 1828 to 1915 in order to study both unique individual lives and changing demographic trends within the border region. In addition to the records, we examined census materials, local publications, and archival material from the church itself. As a result, our presentation of our research was unique. Through the Centre for Digital Scholarship we created an Omeka based website which serves two functions; first, to act as a digital archive where sections of the record books have been digitally preserved using Dublin Core standards, made searchable for both academic and public use; and second, to showcase our interpretive research and utilize all of the functions of Omeka, including: timelines, geolocation maps through Google, and Neatline maps to help create interactive exhibits featuring the church records. Several of these exhibits illustrate not only how individuals within the church were connected to each other, but also how the church community itself was made up of parishioners throughout the greater Detroit River region. As St. John’s was the only Anglican church in the area for roughly a century, it served members from Michigan, Ontario, Quebec, and even Great Britain as the church was an important incentive for immigrants in choosing to settle in the Windsor/Detroit border region. Our research provides an important contribution to local history in understanding the role that St. John’s played in serving and connecting different communities within the Detroit River Region.
Start Date
29-3-2016 10:00 AM
End Date
29-3-2016 11:20 AM
Genealogy of a Parish: The 19th Century Records of St. John's Anglican Church
We used the St. John’s Anglican Church records housed in Leddy Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections to research Sandwich, Ontario’s church community as a microcosm of the greater Detroit River region. We examined the church’s Marriage, Baptismal, Confirmation, and Death records from 1828 to 1915 in order to study both unique individual lives and changing demographic trends within the border region. In addition to the records, we examined census materials, local publications, and archival material from the church itself. As a result, our presentation of our research was unique. Through the Centre for Digital Scholarship we created an Omeka based website which serves two functions; first, to act as a digital archive where sections of the record books have been digitally preserved using Dublin Core standards, made searchable for both academic and public use; and second, to showcase our interpretive research and utilize all of the functions of Omeka, including: timelines, geolocation maps through Google, and Neatline maps to help create interactive exhibits featuring the church records. Several of these exhibits illustrate not only how individuals within the church were connected to each other, but also how the church community itself was made up of parishioners throughout the greater Detroit River region. As St. John’s was the only Anglican church in the area for roughly a century, it served members from Michigan, Ontario, Quebec, and even Great Britain as the church was an important incentive for immigrants in choosing to settle in the Windsor/Detroit border region. Our research provides an important contribution to local history in understanding the role that St. John’s played in serving and connecting different communities within the Detroit River Region.