Aylmer Express Newspaper Indexes
Introduction
The first paper published in Aylmer was the Aylmer Herald whose first issue was on the 5th March 1867. After the Herald went out of publication, it was succeeded by the Aylmer Warder whose first issue was on 1 December 1867. It ran for about one year and then went out of business. On 18 September 1869 Mr. Aldrich published the Aylmer Enterprise. In 1873 Mr. Pankhurst took over and renamed it the Aylmer Paper. This paper was published until September 1879. The Aylmer Paper began publication again on 10 October 1879. The name was changed to the Aylmer Express on 1 January 1880. On 27 November 1886 the Semi-Weekly Sun began publication. It failed in 1887. Under a new owner it was renamed the Aylmer Sun. Both the Aylmer Express and the Aylmer Sun ran papers in Aylmer until 1915. Under new owners the Sun became the East Elgin Reformer and later the East Elgin Tribune, On 19 March 1921 The Aylmer Express masthead included the East Elgin Tribune (Aldrich’s Pocket Directory of the Town of Aylmer, April 1888; article from Aylmer Express, 7 May 1997.)
Unfortunately few copies of the Aylmer Express exist prior to December 1890. Beginning with the issues in 1890, the Aylmer Express is available to researchers on microfilms at the Elgin County Archives and the Aylmer Public Library. This extraction and indexing project has been prepared primarily with the genealogist in mind, but some items relating to local history have been noted.
The first volume of the Extractions from and Index to the Aylmer Express starts on microfilm (E)AY-EX-001 to (E)AY-EX-007 covering the time period of December 1890 – 22 August 1907. The second; (E)AY-EX-008 to (E)AY-EX-009 to cover 29 August 1907 to December 1909. The third, fourth, fifth and other volumes covers further years in five year increments.
The Extractions from and the Index to Aylmer Express Newspapers is the result of countless hours of extraction and data entry. The Elgin County Branch of The Ontario Genealogical Society will continue to extract and index the Aylmer Express on an on-going project and publish it.
Type of Information Extracted for this Project
Items of greatest interest to genealogists found in this index are births, deaths, marriages, engagements, birthdays, anniversaries, in memoriams, notices to creditors, auction sale notices, and family reunions. Other items extracted deal with business and industry, major church events (cornerstone layings, openings, special anniversaries) and major fires. The 1890 to 1907 volume contains a more detailed extraction, including articles relating to business and other local history items.
The material is presented in the following format:
Issue date of newspaper, surname, name, additional information (person’s age, etc.) type of event (b, m or d) and other identifying information.
Marriages have been cross referenced, and separate entry has been made if a maiden name was indicated in an article.
This index lists the date on which the event appeared in the newspaper. It is not the actual date of the event. Marriages are cross-referenced. M-B is Marriage – Bride and M-G is Marriage-Groom. The index was compiled by two students entering the information on file cards. This was then entered into a computer database by Frank Clarke and printed by Elgin County Library. The Elgin County Library gave permission for the Elgin County Branch, O.G.S. to add the information from the Business and Farm file cards which was done by Jim McCallum. Then Jean Bircham has compiled all the entries into one index.
Local history items can be found under the name of the community: Aylmer, Springfield, etc.; and also under topic such as church, school, etc.
Formatted for the Internet 3 October 2004 by BCJ
Copyright by the Ontario Genealogical Society, Elgin County Branch 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microform reproduction, recording, or otherwise – without prior permission of the publisher.