Searching for Reference

to a man

in an

Architect's Diaries

At Queen's University Archives

in Kingston, Ontario, Canada

The facts as presented:

I was contacted by a woman residing in Australia in late March, 2023. Her father was known to have worked as an architect in the firm of a very prominent Canadian Architect in the mid-1940s. The senior Architect's diaries and a notebook created between 1932 and 1960 had been located - microfilm copies are held at Queen's University Archives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. 

The challenge:

Could I be engaged to search the volumes created during a specific period in the mid-1940s, to see if any reference to this man could be found? Certainly!

The results:

Two volumes of diaries created between 1940 and 1947 and the single separate notebook were surveyed entry-by-entry, page-by-page, looking for any entry which pertained to the woman's father. The search pattern covered the man's full name, only his first and or last names, or just simply his forename/surname initials.

Disappointingly, the senior Architect's diaries very rarely contained the names of any of the staff who worked on the many projects he was overseeing in Ontario and Quebec in the survey period. No instances were found which pertained to the woman's father.

- - - - Project No. 230223 (Completed 30 March 2023)