The online resources described below are free and fun to browse at your leisure or investigate more fully. Click on the underlined phrases to visit them.

* The Harbord Village Residents' Association is a member of the Toronto Historical Association, an umbrella group of Toronto-area heritage groups and historical societies.


1950. Sam and Rose Bronstein on the front porch at 169 Major Street, where they lived with their six children and two tenants. Photo provided by Marsha Bronstein Ginsberg.

* Heritage Toronto offers many interesting short narratives about Toronto's past.

* Harbord Village resident Wendy Smith has put together a fascinating interactive historical map about land use and owndership in the earliest days of the city.

* Nathan Ng has made a range of historic maps available:

e.g., Goad's Atlas of Toronto
e.g., Old Toronto Maps
e.g., Toronto Historical Map Viewer — several historic Toronto maps georeferenced and overlaid on a grid. Find your home's location and see what was there during several periods in the city's history.

* The Toronto Public Library offers a wealth of information through links to a wide range of local history resources, both in print and online at http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/history-genealogy.

e.g., Barbara Myrvold's Historical Walking Tour of Kensington Market and College Street, available in PDF format
e.g., Photographs and maps of Harbord Village


Late 1970s. Hockey action shot, 100-102 Major: Carlos Fernandes, Tommy de Medeiros, and Paulo Fernandes using professional equipment donated by their neighbour Mutt Greenberg. Photo provided by Paulo Fernandes.

 

* The City of Toronto's Archives are searchable online, and many of its photographs are also available online. Their collection of William James's photographs, referred to as the William James Fond, is particularly interesting for our history. James lived on Major Street and took many pictures of his neighbourhood.

* For more serendipitous research, check out the History of Toronto Flickr photostream and the often enlightening Lost Toronto photoblog.

* Other sites of note are:
http://torontoist.com/historicist
http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca

* The Kensington Market Historical Society provides a good outline of that neighbourhood's colourful history: http://www.kmhs.ca


Late 1940s. Norman Cook’s aunt Hazel (“Dot”) Sharp married Thomas Pittman, who had fled racial violence in Florida. Hazel’s dress is like the ones worn for a southern Cotillion Ball. Photo provided by Norman Cook.

* Other groups also document the histories of their communities: