November, Farming Fenlands to Canadian Prairies

The November meeting of the Peterborough Local History Society is due to be held on Thursday,  November 10th. The evening will commence with our annual general meeting.

Following this, our speaker for the evening will be Society member, Carolyn Perkins, with “From Farming Fenlands to Ploughing Canadian Prairies.”

This brief history of the Canadian Emigration Service and its office in Market Place, Peterborough uncovers some of the stories behind the emigration agents and staff who worked and visited Peterborough and why they came here. Using some of the surviving documents and records in Canadian and UK archives, the activities and background to the emigration service become evident and also identify other key figures who played their part and have left a mark on our city. As the talk is the evening before Remembrance Day it will also cover some individuals who emigrated through these services and later returned only to lose their lives in the Great War.

Carolyn is a professionally qualified family and local historian and a member of the Register of Qualified Genealogists.  Following her Post Graduate Diploma in Family and Local History from the University of Dundee, the closure of key Canadian archives during the pandemic saw her master’s degree research halted and her thesis unfinished. However, Carolyn is to continue the research and add to Peterborough’s historical knowledge base. She also holds membership of the Society of Genealogists, the Family and Community Historical Research Society, and the British Association for Local History. She is a Friend of the National Archives, in addition to membership of a number of local family and local history societies.