This week’s local history feature delves into a great source for anyone researching their family tree.
Local historian Karen Bachmann points to the municipal assessment rolls. She says they’re not as boring as you might think. But there’s one thing you need to know if you’re going back to the period between 1912 and the mid 1940s.
“You need to read cursive,” she cautions. “If you can’t read cursive script, you’re probably going to be in a bit of a problem. They are all done by hand.”
The earliest ones dating back to Timmins in 1912 list information like who lives at a certain address and what their business was.
“They looked at how many people were living in that house; they would look at what is your religious denomination; they would say, you know, are you a lady or a man living in the house; what is your profession?”
In the weeks to come, we’ll dive into more of what Bachmann learned from assessment rolls, including some of the people.
