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Canada Research Outline |
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Records Of The Family History Library
The Family History Library Catalog
Access To Family History Library Periodicals
Using This Outline
Canadian Search Strategies
Step 1. Identify What You Know About Your Family
Step 2. Decide What You Want To Learn
Step 3. Select A Record To Search
Step 4. Find And Search The Record
Step 5. Use The Information
Map Of Canada
Archives And Libraries
National Archives And Library
Biography
Business Records And Commerce
Cemeteries
Census
Church Records
General Historical Background
Record-keeping Practices
Records
Locating Church Records
Court Records
Provincial Courts
Federal Courts
Directories
Emigration And Immigration
Finding The Emigrant’s Town Of Origin
Emigration From Canada
Records Of Canadian Emigrants In The United States
Gazetteers
Genealogy
Historical Geography
History
Land And Property
Language And Languages
Maps
Military Records
Military History
Military Records
Minorities
Names, Personal
Native Races
Naturalization And Citizenship
Newspapers
Notarial Records
Obituaries
Periodicals
Probate Records
Societies
Vital Records
General Historical Background
Information In Vital Records
Locating Vital Records
Other Records
For Further Reading
Comments And Suggestions
GAZETTEERS A gazetteer is a dictionary of place-names. It describes towns and villages; townships and counties; provinces; sizes of population; and rivers, mountains, and other geographical features. Gazetteers usually include only the names of places that existed at the time the gazetteer was published. The place-names are listed in alphabetical order, similar to a dictionary.
Use a gazetteer to find the places where your family lived and to determine the civil jurisdictions over those places. For example: Iona is a small village in the townships of Southwold and Dunwich, Elgin County, Ontario.
Gazetteers are also helpful for determining county jurisdictions as used in the Family History Library Catalog.
The Family History Library catalogs place-names as follows:
To find the county that a town is filed under in the Family History Library Catalog, use the “see” references on the first microfiche of each province.
For provinces other than Quebec, Gazetteer of Canada is a useful series of gazetteers. It was published between 1962 and 1977 for the Canada Permanent Committee on Geographical Names by the Surveys and Mapping Branch, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. For the call number for each separate volume, see the Locality Search of the catalog under:
[PROVINCE] - GAZETTEERS
These modern gazetteers may be helpful:
Bullinger’s Postal and Shipping Guide for the United States and Canada. Book 2, Canada Section. Westwood, N.J.: Bullinger’s Guides, Inc., 1982. (FHL book 970 E8b; computer number 32238.) For eastern Canadian towns and villages this lists postal code, county, and province. For western Canadian towns and villages it lists postal code and province.
Schindler, Marc A. Administrative Atlas of Canada. Vol. 1, Atlantic Provinces; vol. 2, Quebec; vol. 3, Ontario; vol. 4, Prairie Provinces and the Northwest Territories (3 parts); and vol. 5, British Columbia (2 parts). Gloucester, Ont.: Schindler-Spring Family Organization, 1986–92. (FHL book 971 E7sm vols. 1–5; film 1750799; computer number 434938.) Each volume has a gazetteer that lists major towns and the jurisdictions they are in. Schematic maps show boundaries of those jurisdictions.
Because names and boundaries have changed and some places no longer exist, you may nee descriptions of historical places. Some of the most useful nationwide gazetteers are:
Crossby, P. A. Lovell’s Gazetteer of British North America . . . Six Thousand Cities, Towns and Villages in the Provinces . . . Montreal: John Lovell, 1873. (FHL book 971 E5L 1873; microfilm 844905 item 1; computer number 216439.)
Crossby, P. A. Lovell’s Gazetteer of British North America . . . 7,500 Cities, Towns, Villages and Places in the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, British Columbia, the North West Territories, and Newfoundland. Montreal: John Lovell, 1881. (FHL book 971 E5L 1881; microfiche 6010015–6010020; computer number 28828.)
These list places alphabetically, provinces for each place, electoral counties for eastern Canada, and sometimes population and historical information. Townships or similar jurisdictions are not listed but are in 1871 Dominion Directory, also published by Lovell. See the “Directories” section of this outline.
There are historical gazetteers that identify places in a province. See “Gazetteers” in the research outlines for the provinces.
For other useful gazetteers and shipping guides, see the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:
CANADA - GAZETTEERS CANADA - POSTAL AND SHIPPING GUIDES CANADA - NAMES, GEOGRAPHICAL [PROVINCE] - GAZETTEERS [PROVINCE] - POSTAL AND SHIPPING GUIDES [PROVINCE] - NAMES, GEOGRAPHICAL
Genealogy is used in this outline and in the Family History Library Catalog to describe a variety of family information gathered by individuals, other researchers, societies, or archives. These records may include indexes, pedigree charts, compiled information on families, correspondence, ancestor lists, research exchange files, record abstracts, and collections of original or copied documents. These can be excellent sources that can save you valuable time, but because they are compiled from other sources, they must be carefully evaluated for accuracy.
The Family History Library has several sources that contain previous research or can lead you to others who are interested in sharing family information. These sources include:
FamilySearch™ is a powerful computer system that simplifies family history work. FamilySearch is available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and at over 3,000 Latter-day Saint Family History Centers in the United States, Canada, and a number of other countries.
When the name of an ancestor is typed at the keyboard, FamilySearch™ quickly searches through millions of names and finds any that match. It matches last names that are spelled differently but sound the same. It can guide users from the matches they find to full screens of information: dates and places of birth, marriage, and death; and names of parents, children, and spouses.
The FamilySearch™ files useful for Canadian research are described below.
Other files will be added to FamilySearch™ as they become available.
In addition to FamilySearch™, the Family History Library has the following sources that contain previous research or can lead you to others who are sharing family information. For more information about these sources, see the LDS Records Research Outline (34080).
Many provincial archives and genealogical societies have prepared surname indexes of various records. The Family History Library has microfilm copies of genealogical indexes for some provinces and portions of provinces. See the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under headings such as:
CANADA - GENEALOGY - INDEXES [PROVINCE] - GENEALOGY - INDEXES
A private, for-profit genealogical research company has published a series of regional indexes to genealogical information in published Canadian sources, most of which are histories and directories dating from the middle and late 1800s. The indexes include the following information:
Each volume has a gazetteer of place-names and an appendix that provides bibliographic information about most sources.
The regional indexes include:
Elliott, Noel Montgomery, ed. The Atlantic Canadians 1600–1900: An Alphabetized Directory of the People, Places, and Vital Dates. 3 vols. Toronto: Genealogical Research Library, 1994. (FHL book 971.5 D22a; computer number 718304.) This book indexes over 500,000 names from various sources for the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.
Elliott, Noel Montgomery, ed. The French Canadians 1600–1900: An Alphabetized Directory of the People, Places, and Vital Dates. 3 vols. Toronto: Genealogical Research Library, 1992. (FHL book 971 D22f; computer number 449505.) This book includes English-speaking and French Canadians from Quebec and French Canadians from other provinces. It lists 468,000 people alphabetically, indexes some genealogical dictionaries for early Quebec, and indexes some directories for later times.
Elliott, Noel Montgomery, ed. The Central Canadians 1600–1900: An Alphabetized Directory of the People, Places, and Vital Dates. 3 vols. Toronto: Genealogical Research Library, 1994. (FHL book 971 D22cc; computer number 729333.) This book indexes over 500,000 names found in 211 sources for Ontario and 8 sources for Manitoba.
Elliott, Noel Montgomery, ed. The Western Canadians 1600–1900: An Alphabetized Directory of the People, Places, and Vital Dates. 3 vols. Toronto: Genealogical Research Library, 1994. (FHL book 971 D22w; computer number 750487.) This book indexes about 300,000 names from various sources for the provinces and territories of Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Yukon (also includes Alaska).
Information from all the above series has been combined on one compact disc as:
Canadian Genealogy Index 1600s–1900s, from the Genealogical Research Library. Novato, Calif.: Brøderbund Software Inc., 1996. (FHL compact disc No. 9, Part 118; computer number 793135.) This compact disc gives dates and places for about two million names. It also includes the source of the information.
The Family History Library has some dictionaries and collections of genealogical material for Canadian families, especially those of French origin. An example is:
Dennisen, Christian. Genealogy of the French Families of the Detroit River Region, 1701–1936. Ed. Harold F. Powell. 2 vols. Detroit, Mich.: Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, 1987. (FHL book 977.43 D2d 1987; computer number 452008.) This book includes pedigrees and family groups for hundreds of families on both the Ontario and Michigan sides of the river. It is arranged alphabetically and chronologically by the husband’s surname. It begins with the first immigrants to French Canada in the 1600s and covers their descendants in Michigan to as late as the early 1900s. The information provided includes the date and place of birth for the husband and wife, their marriage date, and their children’s names and christening dates. An index at the end of volume 2 lists wives’ and parents’ names and refers to some members of the clergy and military.
Additional genealogical dictionaries and collections are listed in the research outlines of the provinces.
Find additional genealogical collections in the Family History Library Catalog under:
CANADA - GENEALOGY
Many Canadian families have produced histories or newsletters that have genealogical information, biographies, photographs, and other excellent information. These usually cover several generations of the family.
The Family History Library has many published Canadian family histories and newsletters. See the Family History Library Catalog, Surname section. This lists only the main surnames discussed in each family history.
Many published Canadian family histories are listed in the following works:
Mennie-de Varennes, Kathleen. Bibliographie annotée d’ouvrages généalogiques au Canada/Annotated Bibliography of Genealogical Works in Canada. Text in French and English. 6 vols. Markham, Ont.: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1986–87. (FHL book 971 D23v; computer number 449616.) This book lists sources of genealogical value found in selected libraries and archives across Canada and the northern United States. Its emphasis appears to be on French- and English-Canadian families in French-speaking areas. Volume 1 includes an author-title section of 6,000 entries listing books and periodical articles published through 1980, plus manuscripts dealing with Canadian families. It sometimes includes the publisher’s name, the date and place of publication, and the name of a library that has a copy. Volume 1 also has an index of parishes with 1,605 entries arranged alphabetically by place-name, which lists published print and microfilmed Canadian church records and the archives holding them. Volumes 2 through 6 are an alphabetical list of more than 17,000 family names, with cross-references to the sources listed in volume 1, where information about those families may be found.
Early Canadiana Research Collection. Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM), 1979–. (Not available at the Family History Library.) This set of microfiche contains several thousand titles of histories, directories, periodicals, political documents, and government publications, most of which date from before 1900. The National Library of Canada, the Library of Congress, and a few other large libraries in Canada and the United States have the full set of this collection. Selected titles from this set are listed in:
Gilchrist, J. Brian, and Clifford Duxbury Collier. Genealogy and Local History to 1900=Généalogie et histoire locale d’avant 1900. Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM), 1995. (FHL book 971 D23g; computer number 20569.) This book lists more than 6,000 titles relating to genealogy, family history, and local history. It also lists some directories and voters lists. It includes surname, place-name, and subject indexes. You can order microfiche versions of individual titles listed in this book from the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM). See the “Directories” section of this outline for the institute’s address.
Local histories often include family histories. See the “History” section of this outline.
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Finding Place-Names in the Family History Library Catalog
Historical Place-Names
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GENEALOGY
Major Databases and Collections
FamilySearch™
You are invited to contribute your family history information to Ancestral File. For instructions, see Contributing Information to Ancestral File (34029). You can also correct incomplete or inaccurate information in the file. For instructions see Correcting Information in Ancestral File (34030). For information contact:
Ancestral File Operations Unit
50 East North Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3400
USA
Telephone: 801-240-2584
Fax: 801-240-4606
The Surname Search of the Family History Library Catalog lists over 130,000 surnames found in family histories, genealogies, and pedigrees. When using the Surname Search on compact disc, press the F6 key to add key words or phrases that limit the scope of the search. The computer will find descriptions in which both the surname and the key words appear. This is especially helpful for narrowing searches on a common surname like Smith. To choose key words, use the names of provinces where the family lived or prominent maiden surnames in the family.
. More than 8 million family group record forms including many Canadian families have been microfilmed . There are two major sections: the “Archive Section” and the “Patron Section".
Other Genealogical Indexes
Genealogical Dictionaries and Collections
[PROVINCE] - GENEALOGY
[PROVINCE], [COUNTY] - GENEALOGY
[PROVINCE], [COUNTY], [TOWN] - GENEALOGY
Family Histories
[FamilySearchTM: Research Guidance
Version of Data: 6/8/2001]