POST 1901 CENSUS PROJECT
Open the door to Canada's Historic Census
TOWN HALL MEETINGS |
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This page contains correspondence from Rita Offer, relating to the Town Hall Meeting held in Charlottetown. Rita attended the evening session of these meetings. From: Rita Offer To: Gordon A. Watts Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 6:32 AM Subject: Census Meeting Hi Gordon Well we had a storm here on PEI and two of us from Summerside were going to go down for the afternoon session, 2 to 4, but were unable to because of bad road conditions. Some did make it though, who I do not know. My hubby and I decided after his work at 4 oclock that we would drive down for the evening session 7 to 9. I arrived at the hotel at 6:30 and on the Hotel bulletin board it said 8 to 10..quite a shocker as I was only prepared to stay until 9. Anyway hubby went on an errand and I went to the meeting. When I got upstairs the session was already in progress, having started at 6. I was slightly perturbed but did not say anything and just sat to listen. The moderator told us later that there were 10 formal presenters there for the afternoon session. There were about 13 there this evening. One lady was speaking when I arrived and then 6 gentlemen spoke then 2 more ladies and then I had a short talk. Basically I said that my Grandparents on my Dads side had both passed away long before I was born and there was no one left in my family to ask questions about them and I would love to find out what they did and who their parents were, etc. But the really crucial thing to me was the fact that my Mothers Mom died when Mom was 6 days old and Mom didn't know until she was 23 that she had two older sisters. Mom was raised by her Maternal Grandmother. When Mom passed away in 1997 at age 99 she still did not know about her sisters and I sort of broke down and said that I really needed the information in the 1906 and 1911 census to be able to try to track them down or even their children. I did find both of them in the Cape Breton 1901 Census and needed more information. I sort of concluded on that note as I kind of choked up. I said that the census should be released to the Archives so that it was accessible to all Historians and Genealogists or Family Searchers. I did not think that confidentiality at this point in time, 93 years later, really mattered to those people and when I reached that age it would not matter to me. Yes confidentiality must be honored at the time of the census taking but 10 or 15 years later it would be moot. I also said that in todays technology world with a good computer hacker and any good detective program just about any knowledge about anyone about age, income, debts, credit cards and the like was easily accessed. But we the people who really honestly needed the information about 1906 and 1911 to be able to piece out families together were being denied access to it and it should be released. I guess that's about all I wanted to say other than the fact that they deceived the Island people about the times of the meetings. I do not think anyone that was present were invited to the "Focus" meeting for tomorrow. Cheers and hope that helps Rita |
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