Unique Local Digital Collections
Richmond Hill Public Library continues to develop and expand our digital local history and genealogy collections to facilitate and support the research needs of local historians, genealogists, and history buffs.
Historic Cemeteries of South York Region
Genealogists and students of local history can now examine images of historic tombstones (pre-1930) of Southern York Region from cemeteries at:
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Carrville United Church
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Headford United Church
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Holy Trinity Anglican Church
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Richmond Hill Presbyterian
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St. John's (Jefferson) Anglican Church
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St. Luke's (now St. Volodymr's) Church
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St. Mary's Anglican Church/Arnold Family Burial Grounds
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Temperanceville Presbyterian Church
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Temperanceville United Church
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Thornhill Community Cemetery
Additional photographs of related churches, including memorial windows are also available in this database.
Early Days in Richmond Hill by Robert M. Stamp
Read the electronic version of the popular book by Robert M. Stamp. This online resource has been designed to make finding information about Richmond Hill's rich history and past citizens easy and convenient for students, genealogists, and local history enthusiasts.
Richmond Hill Photo Archive
Access to over 1,000 photographs of daily life in Richmond Hill from 1860. Drawn from the Library's local history photographic collection, it has been assembled from donated family photos provided by local residents, as well as from images from the Liberal newspaper archives.
Richmond Hill Public Library Digital Archive
Curious about what’s in our local history collection? Our digital archives provide an easy way for you to search both digital and physical items in our local history collection. Digital items include photographs, letters, documents, maps, pamphlets, books, newsletters and more. Physical items, all found in the Mary-Lou Griffin Local History Room at Central branch, include non-digitized versions of the above listed items; as well as research materials, family bibles, 35 mm slides, maps, vertical files, family histories and more.
Richmond Hill Historic Newspapers
The digitized local newspapers in this collection include:
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York Ridings' Gazette (1857 to 1858)
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York Commonwealth (1858 to 1859)
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York Herald (1859 to 1890)
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Richmond Hill Liberal (1878-1979). Note that the Richmond Hill Liberal from 1979-present is available on microfilm.
Commercial Digital Collections
Your library card is also a gateway to other valuable digital history collections freely available to you. These include:
Ancestry Library Edition (in Library use only)
Ancestry Library includes genealogical information from over 1,000 international databases.
Toronto Star Pages of the Past (1894-2019)
High quality digital images in the original page format of over 30,000 issues of The Toronto Star. It includes editorial and opinion pieces, advertisements, want ads, birth and death notices, in addition to the stories detailing the events of the day.
Access Toronto Star Pages of the Past
The Globe & Mail (1844-2018)
Canada’s Heritage from 1844. Online searchable articles and pictures from Canada’s national newspaper.
Access The Globe & Mail Archive
Early Canadiana Online
This collection holds the most complete set of full-text historical content about Canada, including books, magazines and government documents. Content spans 21 languages, including French, English, Latin, Greek, and many First Nations languages.
Our Ontario
This is a portal to local history resources contributed by libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, community groups, and government ministries throughout Ontario. Highlights include historic local newspapers, photographs, maps, oral histories, videos and more...