New and Noteworthy - Spring 2009

Donation of Mackay Papers
The archives recently received a wonderful donation of family photographs and papers from Ms. Margaret Mackay. These items document many aspects of her family’s history, and especially the work of her father and grandfather, George William and George Leslie Mackay.  The Mackay family has had a long and significant connection to The Presbyterian Church in Canada, and these items reflecting the work of George Leslie and George William Mackay are a much appreciated addition to the Archives collection. Along with copies of George Leslie Mackay’s journals (already held in the Archives), these new items will be a well-used, and well-appreciated, resource to current and future researchers to our Archives.

Other Recent Donations
Two other noteworthy collections that we are hoping to catalogue in the near future include the papers of The Rev. Dr. Mario DiGangi, and the papers of The Rev. Michael Fesenko. These two very significant and important collections of sermons, articles and other papers were recently donated to the Archives and we look forward to having them fully catalogued and accessible to researchers.

Summer Student 2009
The Archives staff are very pleased to announce that we were once again successful this year in our application for matching funding to the Federal Government’s “Young Canada Works in Heritage Institutions” programme. Through this programme we have been able to hire a student from the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, to work with us over the summer and to catalogue and digitize upwards of 2,500 photographs that are currently un-processed. Our photograph collection is a well-used resource by church officials and the general public and this work over the course of the summer will bring the total number of images in our keyword-searchable database up to approximately 17,500.

160th Anniversary of the Founding of the Buxton Mission
2009 marks the 160th anniversary of the founding of the Buxton Mission by The Rev. William King. In recognition of this the Assistant Archivist, Bob Anger, wrote a small outline of Rev. King’s work for the cover of the May 17 church bulletin. [click here to see a copy]. For more information about the Buxton Mission, please see our online exhibit on the Rev. William King.

Recent Microfilming Work
Many thanks to the congregations of Morewood Presbyterian Church, Ontario, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Greenstone (Geraldton), Ontario, and Knox Presbyterian Church, Gamebridge, for having their historical records copied to preservation microfilm. Microfilm is still the safest and most cost-effective way of insuring that a copy of your records will exist if anything should happen to the originals.