About the Project
Our archive showcases hundreds of diarists from rural Ontario who wrote diaries from 1800-1960. Discover is a good place to meet the diarists and learn about where they lived, their occupations, and brief biographies. You can read and Search through typed pages. Help us Transcribe handwritten ones online to make these valuable sources accessible to all and join our transcribing community.
h
Find out More
Information about the aim of our project and how to participate is here. Enjoy the radio shows, mini-documentaries, scholarship, and other creative work that the diaries have inspired here. Learn how asking questions as you read a diary can unlock its riches here.
Get Involved
T
Transcribers Share Their Experience
“I have just discovered that my great-great grandfathers diaries … are ready to be transcribed. For a family historian it doesn’t get any better than this! … Not to be too fanciful, but it’s as if I sit down most evenings after supper and my ancestral grandfather tells me stories.” – K. Mercier
“I’m finding pieces that fit in the story, and I’m deciphering her writing, and I want to know what happens. It’s like putting together a big puzzle…” – I. Vink
“I admit I felt a slight sense of emptiness when I transcribed the last pages of Ella’s diary. … It feels good to have contributed to something that… future scholars will benefit from in perpetuity. It’s an incredibly rewarding feeling.” – C. Lim
R
Diarists wrote about their work and leisure: click here to see them in action.