CORNWALL, Ontario – On Monday, May 3, Stormont, Dundas, South Glengarry MP Eric Duncan announced the launch of the SD&G Online Archives, a two year project to digitize historical documents as well as many of the newspapers, both past and present, that covered the United Counties of SD&G.
“It is very exciting to finally launch the online archives website after years of work,” said Duncan. “The support for the project from the various newspaper ownership teams, local historical archives and organizations, and from County Council was fantastic. This material is a gift to researchers, and the residents of SDG who now have an online gateway to their history.”
Over 210,000 newspaper pages were digitized as well as over 2,000 photos from the Lost Villages Historical Society.
The pages of 15 different newspapers were included in the project, which range from just nine pages from defunct publications such as the Mountain Herald, to tens of thousands of pages from publications still in print, like the Glengarry News.
The project, which began in 2019, received over $181,000 in support from the United Counties of SD&G.
“County Council believed in this project from the outset,” said United Counties Warden Frank Prevost. “It is said that newspaper reports can be considered the first rough draft of history. We are now preserving this history online for generations to come.”
The project continues, as Duncan continues to work with papers in the City of Cornwall, including Seaway News to include them in the project as well.
The new digital archive is available for viewing online at https://archive.sdgcounties.ca.
