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Canadian Roots

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Those searching any Canadian ancestors will need to review the online database called “Our Roots”.  Because of the United States being bordered with Canada for thousands of miles, over the centuries many Canadians and U. S. citizens have lived for different periods of time in the neighboring country.  Using Our Roots offers online access to some digital material that might be difficult to obtain.

Click on the province you want to investigate and then scan down the hundreds of titles and descriptions.  If there is one of interest just click on the front image cover and the entire table of contents and topics will appear from which to select.

Examples:  1864 - an alphabetical directory of the citizens of Prince Edward Island along with a classified business directory divided up into occupations and listing those who are the blacksmiths or the butchers, etc. The directory has the full name of each individual, their residual village along with what larger town it is near and their occupation. Listed is William Barnstead, a baker living in Sidney which is near Great George and Maria Stewart, a widow of Mathew, living in Prince which is near Euston. These two examples just for Prince Edward Island demonstrate how much can be gathered from this directory.

In Newfoundland there is a business and general directory for 1877.  Here again the occupations are the catalogs and the individuals in those jobs are listed and their location.

The Our Roots site has all the provinces and territories listed.  Select a location and a full listing of all digital book and documents are shown.  For Manitoba there are 222 books or documents.  For New Brunswick there are 62 items; including the directory for 1865.  For the Yukon territory are a listing of 22 items, much covering the history and the gold mines.

Most of the items are in English, but a few are in French also.  To do a general search, one can browse by titles, authors or most useful is by subject.

For those researchers with Canadian ancestors, even those lived in Canada for a short time, go in depth using the Our Roots site.