My name is Ainsley Robertson and I am a first-year Wildlife Biology and Conservation major at the University of Guelph. I’m from Toronto, Ontario and in my free time I enjoy curling or photography. I also love nature, and in the summer I work as a camp counsellor in the Kawartha Lakes area. 

I was immediately drawn to this postcard because it included my last name, “Robertson”, and I was curious about the history of the Robertson Clan. Going into this project, I knew very little about the origins of my last name, so it was interesting to be able to research something I felt a connection with. Additionally, I was curious about “Loch Earn”, the landscape in the center of the card. Many previously natural areas have been built up over the past 100 years, so I was interested in determining how much urbanization has occurred in Loch Earn as a result of increased population size and the rise of the tourism industry.

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take this course because it has given me a greater appreciation for the historical value of ephemera. Seemingly insignificant objects, such as postcards, can actually tell us a great deal about societal values and norms during a particular time period. In some areas of research, historians may learn more from ephemera than they could from more traditional sources, such as censuses. This course has also taught me about the history of Guelph through our class trips to the Guelph Civic Museum and Guelph Art Gallery, both of which I might not have had the opportunity to visit otherwise.