Birth, marriage, and death indices for Port Hope and Hope Township
taken from the local newspapers (1832-2009)
In 2000, Chief Librarian Patricia Enright suggested that we index the birth, marriage, and death notices in the microfilmed issues of the available Port Hope newspapers, with the help of Barbara Trumper and Shirley Horner.
Note Only entries pertaining to Port Hope/Hope Township families were to be indexed.
In 2011, Walt Sammis of Florida discovered the "lost" issues for 1928-1954, stored in the basement of Cobourg's Northumberland Today building. Through the efforts of Sun Media's Darlene Robertson and Port Hope Library's historian Lori Stephenson, one hundred and three bound volumes (image right) were acquired, microfilmed with the financial aid of Cameco Corporation, and indexed with the added help of Bill Hubbs and Allan Mackenzie. As these transcriptions were done by six people, the amount of material varies. Where there were both weekly and daily issues, we used the former, as the material in the dailies was usually repeated in the weeklies.
The Evening Guide ceased publication on 13 February 2009 and our goal is to index all the issues.
A finder's index to the complete collection can be found here.
1832-1899 (3,898 entries)
These entries generally contain a considerable amount of information, including cross-referencing with the local cemetery database, CemSearch, and Ancestry.
1900-1930 (8,689 birth, marriage, and death entries)
Note There are only a few issues for 1927.
1931-1982 (18,147 marriage and death entries)
Note The birth index (5,696) has been taken offline due to concerns about the potential for identity theft. Should you be interested in a search of those years, we'll be pleased to do so.
The existing sixteen issues for 1941 have been indexed, but not yet microfilmed. Missing are issues for Jul-Dec 1950 and May-August 1964. As many of the entries are for weekly issues, accurate dates were often difficult to ascertain (eg. "Married Tuesday last...").
1983-1999 (3,660 death entries)
Note We are recording only death entries from this point for privacy issues, and only those that indicate local people. The descendents, where listed, only include those in the area at the time. There may have been six offspring, but only the area one(s) are shown.
2000-2009 (currently on 2003)
A number of original issues (1877-1927: 18 entries) housed at the Port Hope Archives.
The following seven entries were transcribed in full from issues housed at the Port Hope Archives, which due to their fragility, are not accessible to the public.
Port Hope Watchman 11 July 1850 (3/1):
Port Hope Watchman 11 July 1851 (2/6):
Port Hope Times 06 Sep 1876 (5/4):
Peter and Barbara Bolton - Port Hope, Ontario
www.alivingpast.ca