There’s a certain pleasure in doing research in person with paper and pencil. You feel like you are on the trail of something - going from one source to another, following the clues.

The oldest book in the library is the following item:  "Mechanick Powers: or,  the Mistery of Nature and Art Unvail'd" by Ven [terus] Mandey and J. [ames] Moxon, published in London, England in 1696. On the title page it states that the book was printed for the authors and sold by Ven.

Imagine - horsedrawn vehicles and streetcars, hotels such as the Belvedere, restaurants such as Campbell's and the Talbot Square - all along Dundas in times past. 

London Room Local History and Genealogy Research Service

There is no charge for staff assistance for,

• factual information that can be answered in less than 5 minutes using a single source
• a maximum of 3 London city directory or telephone book answers per week

Information requests that involve a systematic investigation using our resources will have a charge levied. A charge will be incured whether or not an answer is found.

Genealogists are family detectives and we're happy our Digital Image Gallery sometimes provides clues for their mysteries. A recent blog post by The Archivist illustrates how one such detective is using it in his search. We're about to start another digitization project, so stay tuned for more local historic photographs.