The Grimsby Historical Society history archive Ontario

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IMPORTANT NOTICE! Grimsby Archives is now located in its newly renovated premises in the 1911 Carnegie Library Building at 25 Adelaide Street, just one block north of Main Street. We are sharing this building with Foundation of Resources for Teens (FORT) and Adult Learning & Resource Centre of Niagara West.

We are now open and ready to greet visitors once again on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 8.30 am until noon. Please come and see us.

Our new telephone number is 905-309-0796. Our e-mail address will remain the same.

Grimsby Archives is a collection of material accumulated by the Grimsby Historical Society over the past 50 years. The Archives Committee was established in 1999 to organize and preserve this material, and make it accessible to the public.

   The collection includes diaries, directories, publications, scrapbooks and family history documents. We have recently received several interesting donations. Margaret Gibson has donated material on the history of Grimsby secondary school education which formed the basis for her book The Life and Times of Grimsby High School 1857 - 1969. We have also had donations of material on the government of North Grimsby Township, as well as several gifts of family histories. A recent addition to our collection is a copy of the Ontario Land Records Index on microfiche. This can be very helpful to those conducting genealogical research within Ontario.

We also have files on about 90 area families, some containing considerable genealogical information, visit the Family History page.

We hope to keep growing so that we can conserve and preserve as much as possible of our town's past.

   Grimsby is a town with a long and interesting history. In 1787, a group of about 40 United Empire Loyalists settled here at the mouth of Forty Mile Creek. As the years have gone by, the town has gone through numerous changes, being first a small rural village; then a centre for the manufacture of farm machinery, hospital furniture, furnaces and other metal products; and later the hub of the Niagara Peninsula's fruit-growing industry. For many years, Grimsby has also had a successful fishing industry which lasted until the 1960's.

   Interested researchers, genealogists and history lovers are invited to visit the Archives Wednesday and Friday mornings, or by appointment. Or you may telephone us, or send an e-mail message to ghsarchives@becon.org.