You will need some understanding of the historical events that affected your family and the records about them. Learning about wars, governments, laws, migrations, and religious trends may help you understand political boundaries, family movements, and settlement patterns. Records of these events, such as land and military documents, may mention your family.

Your ancestors’ lives will be more interesting if you learn about the history they may have been part of. For example, in a history you might learn about the events that occurred the year your great-grandparents were married.

Some key dates and events in the history of Canada are:

1605	Port Royal, now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, was founded by the French in “Acadia.”
1608	The French established the village of Quebec.
1670	The Hudson’s Bay Company was chartered by the English to compete with the French for the fur trade in western North America.
1713	The English officially received peninsular Nova Scotia, but serious British colonization did not begin until 1749, when Halifax was founded. Newfoundland and the Hudson Bay region were also ceded by the French in 1713.
1755–1758	Some 6,000 French Acadians were forcibly removed from Nova Scotia.
1763	At the close of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War), the Treaty of Paris confirmed British possession of two French colonies in North America, Nova Scotia (formerly Acadia) and Quebec (formerly New France).
1769	Prince Edward Island was detached from Nova Scotia to become a separate British colony.
1774	The British Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which ended military government for the French Canadians. French language, law, religion, and custom were legally recognized in the Province of Quebec.
1784	New Brunswick was separated from Nova Scotia.
1791	The old Province of Quebec was divided into two separate colonies, Lower Canada and Upper Canada.
1812	The Red River Colony was founded by Lord Selkirk, who settled displaced Highland Scots in what is now Manitoba.
1841	The Act of Union established a single combined legislature for Lower Canada (to be called Canada East, later Quebec) and for Upper Canada (called Canada West in 1841 and later called Ontario).
1867	The Dominion of Canada was created, uniting the four provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario.
1870s	The Dominion of Canada stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans as new lands and territories were added. The provinces of British Columbia (1871) and Prince Edward Island (1873) joined confederation.
1870–1912	Large portions of the Northwest Territory were later removed to create the provinces of Manitoba (1870), Saskatchewan (1905), Alberta (1905), and the Yukon Territory (1898) and to add to the areas of Manitoba (1880, 1912), Ontario (1912), and Quebec (1912).
1947	Canadian citizenship was established separate from British.
1949	Newfoundland became the tenth province to join Canada.