The next step after building a prototype was a move to scale the project up to the county level. The increase in scale brings an entirely different set of problems to the table. The first of these was the need to obtain high-resolution digitizations of each of the A. F. Church maps, together with the much more substantial financing needed to repair them and get them digitized. The second was the need for a much more capable and distributed organizational system: it was no longer possible to organize things from central command, but we needed instead autonomous expertise and action in each county region.
During the summer and fall of 2019, we were able to form a coalition of county heritage groups that were interested in paying it forward. It is due to the courage of the Heritage Association of Antigonish, the East Hants Historical Society, the West Hants Historical Society, and the Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia that this project is possible. In the early winter of that year, they published a "Public Announcement" calling for donations of the old lithographs locked away in people's attics and storage closets, as a gift to posterity.
Thank you to all who gave us donations of the magnificent Church maps. So far, we have conserved and digitized maps for Antigonish, Hants, and Halifax counties with financial help from Library & Archives Canada. We have worked out protocols for organizing and conducting work at a county level. On 14 August, 2021, we launched the next phase: matching the census genealogy to the A. F. Church geography for these three counties. During the winter and spring of 2022, pilot projects were completed in each of the three counties. The primary objective was to develop a common methodology, and to develop advanced research methods to overcome particular matching problems. At a June, 2022 meeting, each of the groups made presentations on their experience and findings. The next step is to formalize a methodology which can be communicated to large numbers of volunteers.
This is a big, bold effort in these three counties, with much more blood, sweat, and tears to go when we expand the work from the small pilot project areas to the entire county areas. The work in the first three counties is a first step before we move on one-by-one to each of the other counties in the province.
Perhaps you can help us with this work. Make a difference.
KITH is working with heritage groups in Antigonish, Hants and Halifax counties to preserve and digitize the A. F. Church maps and match the map information with existing genealogical records. The goal is to improve our understanding of the history and social relations in nineteenth century Nova Scotia, and make this data publicly accessible.
