Looking for Canadian Ancestors



Library and Archives CanadaFor those researchers doing family history it is very possible there are some relatives who lived in Canada at some time. This is especially true of ancestors with an English, Irish, Welsh or Scottish background. Many Americans have crossed the northern U. S. border to settle for a few years or permanently in Canada. During the two World Wars there were also many Americans who joined the Canadian military services. Usually this was before the United States officially entered either war or in the case of some, they medically could not quality for the U. S. service, but could serve in the Canadian military.

The Library and Archives Canada collections offer a fabulous genealogy centre with digital vital records, documents, images and indexes of additional data. The site is easy to navigate.

The selection is demonstrated in the list of topics. There are birth, marriage, divorce and death records using parish registers and civil registrations. For each province and territory there is a listing which can be clicked on to call up that database from which to search.

Another topic are the Canadian censuses for 1851 through 1901 done every ten years. There are censuses also for 1906, 1911 and 1916 for certain areas. The censuses are always as great source for names, ages, birthplace, religion, occupation and marital status data.

With so many Canadians and their ancestors emigrating from other countries, the Immigration and Citizenship topics are very good. Additional topics include; military records, cultural groups, land grants, occupations, orphanages, criminals and school records.

To access the all the information there is set up on the site a general ‘Ancestors Search’. You can place just a surname or narrow the search with an individual’s name and selection of a certain topic like ‘soldiers of the First World War’. If just a surname is placed, a selection of an individual with their given names are listed. From that collection one person can be chosen and the data viewed. Some items have an online image, like a census document, whereas others are an index listing with additional links for more information. This is done with the Canadian military veterans found on the ‘Canadian Virtual war Memorial’ site.

There is approximately 19.3 million documents in the Canadian collection and a very worthwhile research tool.

< Return To Blog National Archives and Family Search.org will all have the reports. I potsed the other day on the Ultimate Census Research Collection that Family Tree store has released to help research the 1940 s Census. I
Johanne 6/04/11




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