Submitted by Rick Brown #1815, Projects Chair
CUMMINS Manitoba Railway Guide
We’re pleased to share the we have completed the CUMMINS project. The map was created as a sales tool to enable merchants to sell to rural residents. Contact would be by mail and goods shipped by rail. You could order everything from socks to schools.
We began indexing in January of 2021 and it is finally completed! We would like to thank the 24 Indexers and web developer Kori Maleski for their participation in one of our largest projects.
We have added approximately 90,000 surnames to MANI (MAnitoba Name Index), which you can use to search this map. The information is available to all members through MANI and daily fee visitors at the MGS.
View the Map Sheet Index here.
To search the CUMMINS index:
As a member, you can access MANI from your member dashboard. If you’re not a member, you can sign up here.
Once on the MANI search page, select Source Search on the lefthand side. Then select Cummins Maps.
Then search your ancestors name. For more than one word, select the + dropdowns to use AND, NOT, or OR options. Leave the Keyword boxes blank and select a Municipality or Parish from the dropdown list to list all of the records currently listed in that Municipality or Parish. You can leave this blank to just search by name.
Click the Search button to display a table of results.
Once your results are displayed, you can reduce the number of entries by placing an initial in box below Initial.
Click Details button to see more detail.
Pay attention to the fact that the list is currently set to 10 results per page.
The map will display pins showing the location of the records for the current page only. Selecting a record will display a red pin for that record. Selecting a pin will select the corresponding table record.
Click on the Download Link to view entire area of Map Sheet.
What else can we learn from the maps:
- There were 5 Railways operating in Manitoba in 1923. They are detailed on the Legend on the MAP INDEX sheet linked above.
- The location of the one room schools, indicated by a tree symbol.
- The number on the corner of some quarters indicated the home quarter and the number corresponds with the list of post offices listed across the bottom of the Map Sheet.