The Orange Lodge documents transcribed here were literally found in the attic of the Loyal True Blue and Orange Home on Yonge Street in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The documents which have been transcribed and indexed are Transfer Certificates, Propositions for Membership and other records which contain information of interest to genealogists. There are about 2,700 names in the transcription and the documents date from the 1850’s to 1970.
The transcribed documents are:
- Transfer Certificates:
These certificates were issued to certify that a member of a particular lodge was a member in good standing, in order to facilitate his joining another lodge. A number of certificates refer to members who left a lodge in Ireland, Scotland or England and applied to join a lodge in Ontario. Many others are transfers from one lodge to another within Canada. In addition to the recipient of the Transfer Certificate, any person whose name appears on the certificate has been included in this index. - Propositions for Membership:
These are membership applications from those wanting to join a Lodge. All the Propositions for Membership in this index are from Gideon’s Chosen Few Lodge No. 342 in Toronto. (Depending on the date of application, the Lodge is spelled Gideon or Gideon’s.) Included are any personal details about the applicant, the signatures of two members, and the signatures of one or more members of the Membership Committee. If the applicant wanted health insurance as a benefit of joining, a second part of the form was completed and signed by a physician. - There are a few other documents such as Certificates of Recommendation which are self-explanatory in the transcription. There are also Transfer Certificates from the Royal Black Preceptory, a separate order from the Orange Association. One could belong to either order or both.
About the Index
There are three columns in this index:
- Name: in the format Surname, Given
- Transcription: this is a full transcription of all details in the document.
- Sequence #: this is an individual identification number assigned within the transcribing project to keep track of the documents.
Any indecipherable characters in either the name or place are indicated by the underscore character “_”.
Click HERE to view the transcription.