In the Spring of 2013, Shelby Riddell and Scott McGeown graduated from Western University with a Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Honours History, and Joshua Pride from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Political Science. All three group members are currently pursuing their Master’s degrees in History, Joshua and Shelby at the University of Waterloo and Scott at Wilfrid Laurier University. As members of History 602, at the University of Waterloo, the group constructed a historical website which examines how the Waterloo Region handled the outbreak of the First World War.
Shelby, Scott and Josh completed their Master Degrees in August 2014. In the fall of 2014, Shelby began pursuing a Post-Graduate Certificate in Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Sheridan College; Josh began a Bachelor of Education at Nipissing University; and Scott took the year off to travel abroad before pursuing another Masters degree in the fall of 2015.
In January 2015, the project was dusted off and expanded by a second cohort of Tri-University MA History students. Stephen Collins, Michael Etienne, Sarah McGarry, Kelly McKenzie, and Benjamin Toews teamed up and were able to include new material to the website, which now covers the local experience of the war until the end of August 1915. This group was fortunate to also include two German exchange students, Caterina Katzer and Sonja Schäfer, who were able to include translations of the German language Berliner Journal.
It is still the hope of everyone that this project will be carried on by future classes of History 602, so that the scope of the website may continue to expand.