Blog

Found Time with the CFHA

As many of you know, CFHA has had to postpone its planned Friendly Friday community building event. Many of us will be following good self-distancing practices. This will provide many opportunities for “found time”. It has occurred to us that members and viewers might benefit from some CFHA-related suggestions for this time. We can still create a sense of community on our blog during this crisis. We welcome and encourage members and viewers to send in their additional ideas. Explore the CFHA website in greater Read more

By CFHA, ago

Friendly Friday postponed

Due to the ongoing concerns related to COVID-19 we are taking the precaution of postponing the Friendly Friday event that was scheduled for this Friday March 20th at Toronto Friends House. We will be in touch when we have a new date. Stay safe, stay home, and wash your hands! We look forward to spending time with you and learning about your interests in the future. In the meantime, please join us on our new website by registering for an account, subscribing to new posts via email, and contributing your ideas and research questions for Read more

By CFHA, ago

Quakers who were United Empire Loyalists: The 2019 CFHA AGM Keynote by Randy Saylor

On September 21st 2019, the CFHA held its Annual General Meeting at Toronto Friends House. Those who attended were delighted by the keynote research delivered by Randy Saylor, CFHA’s Transcriptions editor and former Webmaster. We share the text of his talk below (without references) as well as in this PDF (with references) for reading at your leisure. This research is also available in the “research papers” section of our Publications page. Enjoy! Quakers who were U.E. Loyalists Randy Saylor To start, let’s clarify the question Read more

By CFHA, ago

Friendly Friday: Blog Launch Celebration at Friends House, Toronto

Sixth Day, Third Month 2020 (Friday March 20 2020) 1PM – 4PM You are cordially invited to attend the first CFHA ‘Friendly Friday’ at Friends House (60 Lowther Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 1C7). This inaugural meeting is open to all, and there is no admission charge. The nearest transit stop is the St George subway station’s Bedford Road entrance. We will celebrate the recent launch of the CFHA website and its blog, our moderated open forum for members and non-members to connect, share questions and Read more

By CFHA, ago

Welcome Message from the Co-Chairs

As co-chairs of the Canadian Friends Historical Association (CFHA), it is with great pleasure that we, Jeff Dudiak and Gord Thompson, welcome CFHA members and website visitors to our blog. This blog opens up exciting opportunities for dialogue and information sharing. Most CFHA members will be familiar with our two publications, The Meetinghouse newsletter and the Canadian Quaker History Journal. Popular as these high-quality publications have been, they have limited our capacity to share information quickly. Most importantly, they do not facilitate engaged dialogue between Read more

By Jeffrey Dudiak, ago

Who Are The Quakers?: George Fox

The “Who are the Quakers?” poster set started as an initiative of the Eastern Shore Quaker Worship Group in Nova Scotia. An initial set of 8 posters were developed as information aids to visitors to the Quaker Whaling House Museum located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Panels detailing the early multi-racial Quaker community at Beaver Harbour, New Brunswick, and one describing CFHA itself, have since been added. Poster sets suitable for local display are available to Quaker meetings. For details please contact [email protected]. CFHA is very Read more

By Gordon Thompson, ago

See us at the Middlesex Heritage Fair on February 22 2020

The CFHA will be joining the Middlesex Centre Archives this weekend at the Middlesex Heritage Fair. We’ll have a booth where you can learn about Quaker history and descendance, our new website, and our programs and activities. The Fair will be 10am to 4pm on Saturday the 22nd at the Delaware Community Centre: 2652 Gideon Drive, Delaware, ON, N0L 1E0 (map) The event is free and there’s lots of parking! More information at http://middlesexcentrearchive.ca/

By CFHA, ago

Learn about Black Quakers for Black History Month

Happy Black History Month! The CFHA has numerous documents and publications that can help you with historical research and inquiry about Black people in Canada. One such document is the Memorial written about William Allen, a man who was born as a slave in Tennessee and died as a minister at the Yonge St. Meeting. In the death of our dear friend and brother William Allen, a valued minister, who deceased the 21st of 5th month, 1898, at the residence of Wm. Colquhoun, Gowrie, Ontario, Read more

By CFHA, ago

New transcription: Pelham MM 1834-1886 (H-7-4)

We’ve just added a new transcription – Pelham Monthly Meeting 1834 – 1866 (H-7-4). A proposition from Michigan Quarterly Meeting to Erase the word “of Ministers and Elders” from a paragraph of the Discipline 22ndpage was considered and united with & the womens Meeting have informed us of their concurrence the proposed change is accordingly adopted The paragraph in future will read thus When a Minister has a concern to make a religious visit to Europe? or to other foreign parts as the clearest evidence Read more

By CFHA, ago

See us speak at the Ontario Ancestors Conference in June

We’ll be helping to close out the Ontario Ancestors 2020 annual conference in Hamilton this June. On Sunday the 7th we’ll be presenting at 2:30pm. We’ll be talking about our efforts to modernize our organization and provide new digital resources for researching Quaker history: from updating our website and indexing our publications to building a new digital archives platform to present our digitized documents and transcriptions. Here’s our presentation summary: The Canadian Friends Historical Association is developing a more advanced web presence to further genealogical Read more

By CFHA, ago