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Andornot has recently completed work for the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives to add the newly digitized versions of their newspapers up to 1937 to their searchable collections. The majority of issues are from the Arnprior Chronicle starting in 1885.  We also created a Finding Aid allowing researchers to see what issues are available for each of the 16 newspapers with the ability to browse each individually. 

Funding for this project was provided by the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, and will be a wonderful new option for genealogical research as well as providing a window into the coverage of historical events. Individual names can be searched, and search words or parts of words are highlighted on the newspaper pages, as in the screenshot below:

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A search on a general term such as “sawmill” pulls results from several data sources and allows users to easily narrow down their results.

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As well as providing new search capabilities for this important set of documents, this initiative removes the need to consult the now very fragile originals.

The digitization itself was handled by a local vendor and Andornot scripted the OCR’ing to create a searchable layer in the PDF’s.  When funding permits, the aim is to enhance the search option further by matching up the newspaper issues with an index to births, marriages and deaths created by the Archives. 

If you are considering a similar digitization project, or have databases or other material that you would like to make searchable, contact us for a chat to discuss options!

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