By Rick Brown, Projects Chair
“The main product of the Cummins Map Company was a series of landowner maps, known as the Cummins Rural Directory Maps, for Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Prince Edward Island. The rural directory maps contained the names and locations of post offices, the location of local rail lines and the names of the owners of each parcel of land within the area covered.”
We all need a project for those long cold winter evenings. Please consider Indexing an area of the map. If everyone does their part it would be greatly appreciated. Many indexers have commented that it brings back memories of the people their parents and grandparents talked about when they lived on, or visited the old family farm.
Currently we only have 17 Indexers, one is a non-member from Alberta, one is a member from Toronto, both were interested in areas their families lived. We also have a couple of husbands of members interested in maps, history and geography. One Brandon and one SE-Winnipeg member are up to 7 areas each. More than one indexer has found that the area they are from is on the edge of another area and have asked to do the adjacent area too.
If you are interested but unsure of what is involved, I am at the Resource Centre every Wednesday from 10:00 till 3:00. You can drop in get a tour and see what it is all about. I am also planning evening meetings if anyone is interested. Please e-mail me at projects@mbgenealogy.com to see what we can arrange.
The following areas are still to be indexed. The names indicate a town within each area.
Keleida, Crystal City, Goodlands, Lyelton, Underhill, Swan Lake, Deerwood, Carman, Sperling, Dufort, Roseau River, Dufresne, St. Norbert, Elm Creek, St. Claude, Alexander, Brookdale, Katrime, Portage la Prairie, Rosser, St. Laurant, Langruth, Strathclair, Solsgirth, Birdtail, Horod, McCreary, Glencarian, Alonsa, West of 6, Fisher Branch, east of 6, Eddystone, St. Rose, Makaroff, Ethelbert, Rorkton, Crane River, Winnipegosis, Pine River, Benito, Swan River, and Minitonas
We are also hoping a member or two would be interested in indexing the River Lots which are included in 13 of the areas. Many were from the days of Metis Scrip.
We have completed over 50% of the indexing project. Winter is coming, and if you can contribute to this project by doing some indexing from the comfort of your home, please contact the MGS Project Chair. We thank all our member and non-member volunteers for their continued work and support of this project.
To learn more about the 1923 Cummin’s Map Project visit the MGS website Project page at https://mbgenealogy.com/what-we-do/programs-projects/1923-cummins-map-project/