CHURCH RECORDS

Consult church registers for records of baptisms, marriages, and burials before 1869—the year civil vital registration began in Ontario. These registers may be useful to 1930, when complete civil vital registration was finally achieved. Religious affiliation can be determined from family sources or censuses beginning in 1851.

You should search the registers of all denominations in the area where your ancestor lived, since many baptisms were performed in the nearest church, regardless of the family's religious affiliation. At certain periods of Ontario's history, only certain denominations were allowed to perform marriages. In many cases an individual had to be married by a priest or minister of a religion other than his own. The following history traces these changes:

1793	Pre-Only Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy could legally perform marriages.
1798-1793	Marriages could be performed by Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy and district clerks if the couple resided more than eighteen miles from an Anglican minister. Despite legal restrictions, a few Lutheran and Presbyterian ministers performed marriages before 1798 and recorded them in church registers.
1831-1798	Anglican, Calvinist, Church of Scotland, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic clergy could perform marriages.
1858-1831	All denominations mentioned above as well as Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians could perform marriages. Only non-Catholic and non-Anglican clergy were required to keep marriage registers for the inspection of civil authorities, separate from regular parish records.
1869-1858	Clergy of all denominations could perform marriages. Clergy of all faiths were requested to transcribe information into county marriage registers; many did not.

The Family History Library has many parish records of the Roman Catholic Church and some church records for smaller denominations, notably minutes of various Baptist conferences.

Many denominations have collected their records into central repositories. Some national church headquarters or archives are described in the Canada Research Outline (34545). Addresses of many church archives in Ontario are in Brenda Dougall Merriman's Genealogy in Ontario, pages 243-46 (see the “For Further Reading” sections of this outline).

You can write to the following churches to learn where their records are located.

Anglican

The Anglican Church in Canada, sometimes called Church of England or Protestant Episcopal Church, has published an inventory of church records and their locations at diocesan archives in Ontario:

Guide to the Holdings of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario. Agincourt, Ont.: Generation Press, 1990. (FHL book 971.3 K23g; not on microfilm.)

Further information is available from:

Archivists of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario
135 Adelaide Street East
Toronto, ON M4C 1L8
CANADA

Baptist

Many Baptist records for Ontario are at the Family History Library. For further information write to:

Canadian Baptist Archives
McMaster Divinity College
Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1
CANADA

Presbyterian

Only a few pre-1925 Presbyterian records are available through the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Some of these are on film at the Family History Library. Most such records are at archives of the United Church of Canada. See the address below.

Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives
11 Soho Street, Suite 104
Toronto, ON M5T 1Z6
CANADA

Roman Catholic

Most pre-1910 records of Roman Catholic parishes in Ontario have been microfilmed and are available through the Family History Library and its centers. Exceptions are listed below.

The records of Stormont and Glengarry Counties are at:

Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall
220 Chemin Montreal
P.O. Box 1388
Cornwall, ON K6H 5V4
CANADA

The parish records of the Diocese of Hamilton are at:

Diocese of Hamilton
700 King Street West
Hamilton, ON L8P 1C7
CANADA

United Church of Canada

United Church records include Methodist, most Presbyterian, and Congregational church records dating from before the 1925 merger which formed the church. Many records are still in the hands of local clergymen. Others are at:

United Church of Canada Archives
73 Queen's Park Crescent East
Victoria University
Toronto, ON M5S 1K7
CANADA

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