Ontario Cultural Groups

Library and Archives Canada
First of all, realize that members of different ethnicities, nationalities, and cultures are recorded in all the major record groups used for genealogy in Ontario. Start with these Wiki articles to learn about the most important record groups: For some of the groups below, additional specific records were created by the government and churches. For each group below, in addition to a brief history, there is a link to an article prepared by the Library and Archives Canada detailing available records and publications.
 * Ethno-Cultural Groups
 * Step-by-Step Ontario, Canada Research
 * Ontario Civil Registration
 * Ontario Church Records
 * Ontario Census
 * Ontario Record Finder

Black History

 * Black History in Canada Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Wikipedia: Black Canadians
 * Immigrants to Canada, Porters and Domestics, 1899-1949 Database
 * 1836-1895 - William King Collection
 * Born in Scotland, William King came to Canada as a Free Church missionary and was active in the abolition struggle. He established the Elgin Settlement, designed for escaped slaves from the United States. He also assisted with the organization of a Black community near Chatham, Ontario.


 * In 1793, the Upper Canada legislature passed an act that granted gradual abolition and any slave arriving in the province was automatically declared free. Fearing for their safety in the United States after the passage of the first Fugitive Slave Law in 1793, over 30,000 slaves came to Canada via the Underground Railroad until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. They settled mostly in southern Ontario.
 * In Ontario the Underground Railroad fugitives tended to concentrate in settlements, less as a consequence of government policy than for the sake of mutual support and protection against white Canadian prejudice and discrimination and American kidnappers.
 * The fugitive blacks who had arrived in Ontario via the Underground Railroad typically arrived destitute, and without government land grants were usually forced to become laborers on the lands of others, although some farmed their own land successfully, and some worked for the Great Western Railway.
 * During the 19th century, British and American societies established schools for blacks throughout Ontario. The government of Ontario created legally segregated public schools. In 1965 the last segregated school in Ontario closed.
 * Many returned to the United States to fight in the Civil War and rejoin their families after its end.
 * In the 1900s, many Black people migrated to Canada in search of work and became porters with the railroad companies in Ontario, Quebec, and the Western provinces.
 * From 1910 to 1962, the government of Canada implemented a new Immigration Act that barred immigrants from some races and very few Black people entered Canada.
 * In 1962, racial rules were eliminated from the immigration laws. By the mid-1960s, approximately 15,000 Caribbean immigrants had settled in Toronto. Over the next decades, several hundred thousand Afro-Caribbeans arrived, becoming the predominant black population in Canada. Between 1950 and 1995, about 300,000 people from the West Indies settled in Canada.
 * Most of Ontario's black settlements were in and around Windsor, Chatham, London, St Catharines and Hamilton. Toronto had a black district, and there were smaller concentrations of blacks near Barrie, Owen Sound and Guelph. Also from Wikipedia: The refugee slaves who settled in Canada did so primarily in South Western Ontario, with significant concentrations being found in Amherstburg, Colchester, Chatham, Windsor, and Sandwich.

British Immigrants

 * British Genealogy Sources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Voyageur Contracts Database Approximately 35,900 fur trade contracts signed in front of Montréal notaries between 1714 and 1830.
 * United Empire Loyalist Records, Archives of Ontario
 * Loyalists, Library and Archives Canada
 * 1784-1884 - The centennial of the settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, 1784-1884
 * The Loyalists in Ontario - at Ancestry.com.
 * Audit Office : AO 13. Claims, American Loyalists - Series II : selections : C-9821
 * 1783-1792 - Original loyalist claims evidence books diffusion material


 * The English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in 1611 and claimed the area for England.
 * The first European settlements were in 1782–1784 when 5,000 American loyalists entered what is now Ontario following the American Revolution. From 1775 to 1783, during the American Revolution, an influx of English Loyalist settlers migrated to Nova Scotia, Lower Canada (Quebec), New Brunswick and Upper Canada (Ontario). The exodus from the United States to what would become Canada lasted until the War of 1812 when the British Forces mobilized their regiments to defend their colony from an American invasion.
 * 30,000 or more "Late Loyalists" settled in Ontario in the early 1790s at the invitation of the British administration and were given land and low taxes in exchange for swearing allegiance to the King for a total of 70,000+ new settlers.
 * There were in fact four waves of emigration:
 * in the years 1774 through 1776 when for example 1300 Tories were evacuated with the British fleet that left Boston for Halifax;
 * the large wave of 50,000 in the years 1783;
 * some few thousands who had stayed in the new Republic but left disenchanted with the fruits of the revolution for Upper Canada between 1784-1790; and
 * the large number 'Late Loyalists,' 30,000, who came in the early 1790s for land.


 * The creation of Upper and Lower Canada in 1791 allowed most Loyalists to live under British laws and institutions.
 * Loyalists were drawn away from Quebec City and Montreal by offering free land on the northern shore of Lake Ontario to anyone willing to swear allegiance to George III. The Loyalists were thus given land grants of 200 acres per person. Basically, this approach was designed with the intent of keeping French and English as far apart as possible.

Danish

 * Danish Immigrants Genealogy Resources, Library and Archives Canada.
 * History Federation of Danish Associations in Canada


 * Although there are early accounts of Danes working as trappers in Canada, little documentation exists that describes their experiences. By the 1860s, political unrest, religious divide and the promise of a better life in America, all contributed to the migration of Danish people to Canada and the United States.
 * In Ontario, the city of London was a chosen destination for the Danes at the turn of the century. In 1893, some forty butchers and sausage makers settled in Pottersburg (London, Ontario). The attraction there was the large pork packing plant which had been built by John Ginge.
 * The community of Pass Lake near Thunder Bay was established in 1924. Land clearing around Pass Lake, Ontario (60 km east of Thunder Bay) began in 1924 by Danish settlers. In order to obtain the deed to their homestead, the settlers had to build a house and barn; clear and farm at least two acres of land during each of the first three years; had to live on the land at least six months of the year and also obtain citizenship papers.  Then after the three year period they could apply to get the deed to his homestead.  The settlers would cut pulpwood in the winter for the Provincial Paper Company, which was situated north of Port Arthur, and then clear land for the purpose of farming in the summer.  Many Danish immigrants joined the settlers between 1926 and 1930.   They eked out a living by selling wood products, such as pulpwood, lumber, firewood, railway ties and fence posts until the land was cleared for farming.  Around 1930, enough land had been cleared and farming began.
 * During the World War II, many of the Danish settlers in Pass Lake sold their land and moved away. However, new Danish immigrants started arriving and settled in Pass Lake during the 1950s.

Dutch

 * There were three major periods of Dutch immigration to Canada. The second large migration period occurred between 1920 and 1929. During this time, there was a high demand for labour in the farming, industrial, construction and domestic sectors. The majority of these people settled in southern and southwestern Ontario. Significant numbers also settled in major cities like Toronto.
 * The third and last large wave of Dutch immigration began in 1947 following the end of the Second World War. Many of these migrants came from the agricultural sector, but there were also large numbers of skilled laborers and professionals, as well as war brides. (There were officially 1,886 Dutch war brides to Canada, ranking second after British war brides). The primary destination for most of these immigrants was Toronto, Ottawa, and urban centres in the Western provinces.
 * Although the immigration of Dutch peoples slowed after the 1950s, it would never fully cease as people continue to arrive in Canada in lesser numbers to this day. The population of people of Dutch descent today in Canada is approximately one million.

East Indian (Indo-Canadians)

 * East Indian Immigrant Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Indo-Canadians


 * During the 1970s and 1980s large numbers of people of East Indian descent migrated to Canada from the British Caribbean, most notably Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, as a result of economic difficulties existing in those countries.
 * Approximately 90,000 East Indians migrated from the Caribbean between 1962 and 1992.
 * There was, however, earlier migration of students studying and then residing in Canada from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, and Jamaica but their numbers were quite small. Most of these migrants settled in the province of Ontario with the vast majority settling in the Toronto region.
 * There have also been smaller numbers of people of East Indian descent who immigrated to Canada from Fiji.​
 * Toronto has the largest Indian Canadian population in Canada. Almost 51% of the entire Indian Canadian community resides in the Greater Toronto Area. Most Indian Canadians in the Toronto area live in Brampton, Markham, Scarborough, Etobicoke, and Mississauga. Indian Canadians, particularly, Punjabi Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus, have a particularly strong presence in Brampton, where they represent about a third of the population (Most live in the northeastern and Eastern portion of the city). The Indian Canadians in this region are mostly of Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayali and Goan origin.

Finnish

 * Finnish Immigrants Genealogy Resources


 * Finns began settling in large numbers in the 1880s. During this period, many Finns who had arrived in the United States in the 1860s crossed the border into Canada. By 1890, many communities of Finnish Canadians had formed. The largest of those communities were Nanaimo, British Columbia; New Finland, Saskatchewan; Port Arthur, Toronto and Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario.
 * The first large wave of Finnish immigration to Canada occurred in the early twentieth century leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. Approximately one-third of all Finnish immigrants to Canada arrived between 1900 and 1914. As a result of this immigration, the first secular Finnish cultural society was created in 1902 under the name of Finnish Society of Toronto.

First Nations

 * First Nations Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Indian registers of marriages, baptisms, burials from Catholic missions in Ontario, 1843-1915?
 * Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923 Saint Mary's Indian Boarding School (Kenora, Ontario). Mary Queen Indian Missions (Kenora, Ontario). Saint Mary's Indian Boarding School (Kenora, Ontario). Browsable images.


 * Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the region was inhabited by Algonquian (Ojibwe, Cree and Algonquin) in the northern/western portions, and Iroquois and Wyandot (Huron) people more in the south/east.
 * From 1634 to 1640, Hurons were devastated by European infectious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, to which they had no immunity. By 1700, the Iroquois had seceded from Ontario and the Mississaugas of the Ojibwa had settled the north shore of Lake Ontario. The remaining Huron settled north of Quebec.
 * In 1782–1784, the British set up reserves in Ontario for the Mohawks who had fought for the British and had lost their land in New York state.
 * Other Iroquois, also displaced from New York were resettled in 1784 at the Six Nations reserve at the west end of Lake Ontario. The Mississaugas, displaced by European settlements, would later move to Six Nations also.

German Immigrants
The British purchased the services of 30,000 German Soldiers for $150,000, all of which went into the royal coffers of the German princes. These troops came from Hesse Cassel, Hesse Hanau, Brunswick, Anspach, Bayreuth, Anhalt Zerbst and Waldeck. A large migration of Germans to Canada occurred during the period after the American Revolution. A total of 30,000 Germans fought in North America between 1776 and 1783; among them, 10,000 men served in Canada and almost 2,400 settled there after the war, mainly in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
 * German Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Internet Listing of Hessian Soldiers of the Revolution

Greek Immigrants

 * Greek Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * 2,650+ Greeks in Online Canadian Naturalization Records 1915-1932


 * Greek immigration increased dramatically in the early twentieth century, due to poverty and political instability in Greece. The 1911 census recorded 3650 Greeks in Canada, most of them living in Montreal and Quebec (Quebec), Toronto (Ontario), Halifax (Nova Scotia), Edmonton (Alberta) and Winnipeg (Manitoba). Most were businessmen, running their own stores, hotels, bakeries and restaurants.
 * Emigration stopped during the Second World War. After this period, Canada became more open to immigrants from southern Europe. Through family sponsorship and other employment schemes Greeks had easier entrance into Canada. After the end of the War, immigration sharply picked up and over 10,0000 Greeks entered Canada between 1945 and 1971.
 * Over eighty percent of Greek Canadians live in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, with heavy concentrations in the cities of Montreal and Toronto.
 * There was also steady immigration of Greeks from Cyprus to Canada beginning after the Second World War. The largest wave of Cypriot immigrants occurred after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when over 200,000 Greek Cypriots fled Cyprus and settled in Greece. Many of these English-speaking refugees continued to Canada and settled in Montreal (Quebec), Toronto, Hamilton, and Kitchener (Ontario).
 * There are over 25,000 Greek Cypriots in Canada today, and approximately 250,000 people of Greek descent, originating from various countries.

Irish Immigrants

 * Irish Genealogy and Family History Library and Archives Canada.
 * at Grosse Île Quarantine Station, 1832-1937 Database'''


 * From the times of early European settlement in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Irish had been coming to Ontario, in small numbers and in the service of New France, as missionaries, soldiers, geographers and fur trappers.
 * After the creation of British North America in 1763, Protestant Irish, both Irish Anglicans and Ulster-Scottish Presbyterians, had been migrating over the decades to Upper Canada, some as United Empire Loyalists or directly from Ulster.
 * In the years after the War of 1812, increasing numbers of Irish, a growing proportion of them Catholic, were venturing to Canada to obtain work on projects such as canals, roads, early railroads and in the lumber industry. The laborers were known as ‘navvies’ and built much of the early infrastructure in the province. Settlement schemes offering cheap (or free) land brought over farming families, with many being from Munster (particularly Tipperary and Cork).
 * Peter Robinson organized land settlements of Catholic tenant farmers in the 1820s to areas of rural Eastern Ontario, which helped establish Peterborough as a regional centre.
 * The Great Irish Hunger 1845–1849, had a large impact on Ontario. At its peak in the summer of 1847, boatloads of sick migrants arrived in desperate circumstances on steamers from Quebec to Bytown (soon to be Ottawa), and to ports of call on Lake Ontario, chief amongst them Kingston and Toronto, in addition to many other smaller communities across southern Ontario. Quarantine facilities were hastily constructed to accommodate them. Nurses, doctors, priests, nuns, compatriots, some politicians and ordinary citizens aided them. Thousands died in Ontario that summer alone, mostly from typhus.
 * An economic boom and growth in the years after their arrival allowed many Irish men to obtain steady employment on the rapidly expanding railroad network. Settlements developed or expanded along or close to the Grand Trunk Railroad corridor often in rural areas, allowing many to farm the relatively cheap, arable land of southern Ontario. Employment opportunities in the cities, in Toronto and elsewhere, occupations included construction, liquor processing, Great Lakes shipping, and manufacturing. Women generally entered into domestic service. In more remote areas, employment centered around the Ottawa Valley timber trade which eventually extending into Northern Ontario along with railroad building and mining.
 * There was however, the existence of Irish-centric ghettos in Toronto (Corktown, Cabbagetown, Trinity Niagara, the Ward) at the fringes of urban development, at least for the first few decades after the famine.

Italian Immigrants

 * Italian Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * War of 1812 Database"
 * Most Canadian Italians arrived through New York.
 * Italians to America Passenger Data File, 1855 - 1900, index (may have stronger search engine).


 * The first settlement of Italians in Canada did not occur until 1665 when soldiers from areas of what is now present-day Italy were recruited by the French army to be part of their Carignan-Salières Regiment.
 * Italians also served with the British military in Lower Canada in the de Meuron and de Watteville Regiments during the War of 1812. When the regiments were disbanded in 1816, some of soldiers stayed in Canada, settling in Ontario and the Eastern Townships in Quebec.
 * Immigration from Italy did not increase substantially until after the unification of modern Italy, in 1870. Canada attracted migrant labourers and skilled tradesmen in the railway, mining and construction industries, but by the early 1900s, more and more of the temporary migrants chose to stay permanently rather than return to Italy. They were joined by farmers, artisans and merchants. Italian business districts developed in most urban centres, especially in Montreal and Toronto.
 * There are approximately 1.4 million Canadians of Italian descent today. Many of these people are descendents from the recent Italian immigration in the post-Second World War era which saw Southern Italy as a major source of immigration. More than ninety percent of Italians that entered Canada between 1946 and 1967 were sponsored by relatives in Canada. The majority of these immigrants settled in large and medium-size cities across Canada.

Japanese

 * Japanese Canadians Library and Archives Canada


 * The first wave of Japanese immigrants known as Issei (first generation) emigrated primarily from the southern Japanese islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Okinawa. The vast majority of Issei settled in communities along the Pacific Coast. A few took up residence in the surrounding areas of Lethbridge and Edmonton in Alberta. The 1901 Census shows 4,738 persons of Japanese ancestry living in Canada. By 1911, the Japanese Canadian population had doubled to nearly 10,000.
 * However, on February 24, 1942, the Government of Canada used the War Measures Act to order the removal of all Japanese Canadians residing within 160 kilometres of the Pacific coast. Some 20,000 persons of Japanese ancestry (74% of whom were Canadians by birth or naturalization) were sent to civilian and Prisoner of War internment camps, road camps and sugar beet farms in the interior of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.
 * The community’s property – including houses, boats, businesses and farms – were confiscated and held in trust. In 1943, the federal government liquidated all of these assets. Internees were compelled to use money realized from the compulsory sales of their property to pay for their own internment.
 * Between May and December 1946, 3,964 Japanese Canadians (66% of whom were Canadians by birth or naturalization) were deported to Japan.
 * Those who remained in Canada were dispersed across the country to Ontario, Quebec or the Prairie provinces. Japanese Canadians were not permitted to return to the west coast until 1949, the same year they finally received the right to vote in both provincial and federal elections.
 * On September 22, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney stood in the House of Commons and formally acknowledged the community’s wartime human rights violations. He announced an agreement with the NAJC which included symbolic, individual redress payments of $21,000 for each living Japanese Canadian who had been expelled from the coast in 1942 or who was born before April 1, 1949.

Jewish Immigrants

 * Jewish Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Canadian Jewish Heritage Network
 * JewishGen Canada Database


 * Jewish immigrants, primarily from Western Europe, began arriving on North American shores by the middle of the eighteenth century. However as proclaimed by law, colonization to New France was restricted to Catholics only. Some Jews circumvented this restriction by converting to Catholicism while others chose to settle further south in British occupied territory (Ontario). After the fall of New France, Jews began to settle openly in Canada as British rule resulted in more religious tolerance.
 * Many Jewish immigrants to Canada arrived as troops of General Jeffery Amherst who overthrew the city of Montreal in 1760. Several of these men chose to remain and within years Montreal's first Jewish community was established. It was this burgeoning Jewish community that built Shearith Israel, Canada's first synagogue in 1768.
 * Faced with increasing hardship, violence and anti-Semitism throughout Europe, 15,000 Jews immigrated to Canada in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
 * By the outbreak of the First World War, Canada's Jewish population had grown to 100,000. Roughly three-quarters of this Jewish population was located in the cities of Montreal and Toronto.
 * By 1949 Canada accepted over 40,000 Holocaust survivors. In following years, Canada was again the destination, this time for many French-speaking Jews, seeking refuge from aggression and volatility in several North African nations.
 * Today, Canada's 370,000 Jews make Canada home to the fourth largest Jewish population in the world. Most Canadian Jewry lives in the provinces of Québec and Ontario and particularly in the city of Toronto.

Mennonites

 * Mennonites Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.


 * The arrival of Mennonites in Canada goes back to the late 1770s. The Swiss Mennonites left Pennsylvania and crossed the Niagara River to settle in Canada. During that same time period, about 2,000 Pennsylvania Dutch, as they became known, left the United States to settle in Canada. Free land and avoiding military service in the American Revolution were motivating factors to head north to Canada.
 * One group settled in the Niagara District in the present-day counties of Welland, Lincoln and Haldimand.
 * A second group settled in Whitchurch in York County.
 * A larger third group founded the Grand River settlement.
 * In Perth County, the communities of Milverton and Millbank are home to Canada’s largest Amish settlement, a group named after Bishop Jacob Ammon, a conservative leader in the late 17th century.
 * In 1807, Benjamin Eby founded Ebytown (now Kitchener) in Waterloo County.
 * Today, almost 200,000 Mennonites call Canada home.

Métis

 * Métis Nation  Government of Canada
 * Métis Wikipedia
 * Métis Genealogy Library and Archives Canada
 * Voyageur Contracts Database Approximately 35,900 fur trade contracts signed in front of Montréal notaries between 1714 and 1830.
 * Hudson's Bay Company Archives
 * Resources
 * Name Indexes


 * Metis Population from 2001 and Metis Population from 2006 Census Maps


 * The Métis are a multi ancestral indigenous group whose homeland is in Canada and parts of the United States between the Great Lakes region and the Rocky Mountains. The Métis trace their descent to both Indigenous North Americans and European settlers (primarily French). Not all people of mixed Indigenous and Settler descent are Métis, as the Métis are a distinct group of people with a distinct culture and language. Since the late 20th century, the Métis in Canada have been recognized as a distinct Indigenous people under the Constitution Act of 1982 and have a population of 587,545 as of 2016.
 * During the height of the North American fur trade in New France from 1650 onward, many French and British fur traders married First Nations and Inuit women, mainly Cree, Ojibwa, or Saulteaux located in the Great Lakes area and later into the north west.
 * The majority of these fur traders were French and Scottish; the French majority were Catholic.
 * These marriages are commonly referred to as marriage à la façon du pays or marriage according to the "custom of the country."
 * At first, the Hudson's Bay Company officially forbade these relationships. However, many Indigenous peoples actively encouraged them, because they drew fur traders into Indigenous kinship circles, creating social ties that supported the economic relationships developing between them and Europeans. When Indigenous women married European men, they introduced them to their people and their culture, taught them about the land and its resources, and worked alongside them. Indigenous women paddled and steered canoes, made moccasins out of moose skin, netted webbing for snowshoes, skinned animals and dried their meat for
 * The children of these marriages were often introduced to Catholicism, but grew up in primarily First Nations societies. As adults, the men often worked as fur-trade company interpreters, as well as fur trappers in their turn.
 * Many of the first generations of Métis lived within the First Nations societies of their wives and children, but also started to marry Métis women.
 * By the early 19th century, marriage between European fur traders and First Nations or Inuit women started to decline as European fur traders began to marry Métis women instead, because Métis women were familiar with both white and Indigenous cultures, and could interpret.

Scottish Immigrants

 * Scottish Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Voyageur Contracts Database Approximately 35,900 fur trade contracts signed in front of Montréal notaries between 1714 and 1830.
 * Hudson's Bay Company Archives
 * Resources
 * Name Indexes


 * Few Scottish families settled in Canada before the British conquest in 1759. The majority of these early Scottish settlers were Roman Catholics seeking political and religious refuge, fur traders with the Hudson's Bay Company, merchants and disbanded soldiers.
 * Between 1815 and 1870, over 170,000 Scots immigrated, with increasing numbers settling in Quebec and Ontario, notably in Lanark County. They were a widely-varied group, including Highlanders and Lowlanders, farmers, teachers, merchants, clergymen and servants. Many were Presbyterian and English speaking. Many Scots were encouraged and supported by the British government and private companies in their effort to emigrate.