The Anglican Church of Canada

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The break of the church in England from the church of Rome happened for political rather than religious reasons at first, although the atmosphere of the sixteenth century would probably have led to some theological crisis eventually. The differences between Catholics and Protestants in England for the next fifty years were largely political and resulted in a great many deaths. In the late 17th century public opinion hardened against the Catholics and they lost most of their political rights including the right to vote and hold office, which they would not regain until the 1830s. The monarch and her heirs can still not marry a Roman Catholic.

The Church of England had always been the state church and remains so. This meant that the activities and office-holders of the church were determined by the government, and this included the record-keeping. The C of E (as it was known) kept marriages, baptisms and burials because they were legislated to do so by Parliament, and the custody of the records was also a legal matter.

The first Anglican churches in Canada were in Newfoundland at the time of the early settlements there. As each British settlement was established elsewhere, there were also Anglican churches with rectors trained in England. At the time, all Anglican priests were graduates of the universities at Oxford or Cambridge. This was even true in Québec after the conquest of 1763.

The 18th century Church of England was going through a time of stagnation which continued until the revivals of the second quarter of the 19th century. This meant that at the time of early settlement in much of eastern Canada the energy required to send missionaries to evangelize the colonies was somewhat lacking. The efforts of the Methodists to fill this gap resulted in a weakening of the C of E in Canada and gains by the newer religion.

However, there are always Anglican churches in settlements of any size throughout English Canada and their tradition of record-keeping means that researchers should, when in doubt, look in the Anglican registers for their relations.

English priests kept good records because they had been trained to do so, and they also accepted their responsibility to marry and baptize anyone who came to them for those sacraments. The records are usually in good condition and may be held by the local church or in diocesan archives.

The Anglican liturgy is a child of the Catholic mass in form and the records are similar to those kept by the Catholics and Lutherans. There are usually baptisms, marriages and burials. It is also possible to find confirmations, but communicants lists are rare. There may also be vestry minutes and accounts.

Considerable work has been done in cataloguing Anglican records. There is a catalogue of western records in Guide to the Holdings of the Archives of the Ecclesiastical Province and Dioceses of Rupert's Land, by Wilma MacDonald (1986), and a similar catalogue for Ontario, Guide to the Holdings of the Archives of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario, by the Archivists of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario (1990).

There may also be individual diocesan catalogues, either official ones such as that for the diocese of Ontario, Diocese of Ontario (Anglican Church of Canada) Archives: preliminary inventory, 1980, researched and compiled by Allan J. Anderson (1980), or informal ones such as that for the diocese of Ottawa compiled by John D. Reid and Fred Neal and published in Anglo-Celtic Roots (fall 2000). To determine if there is a catalogue for the diocese which interests you, consult the diocesan archivist.

There are histories of many kinds about the Anglicans in Canada, from sweeping sagas (The Anglican Church from the Bay to the Rockies: a history of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert's Land and its dioceses from 1820 to 1950, by T.C.B. Boon, 1962) to diocesan and parish histories, and missionary accounts.

The official name of the C of E in Canada is now The Anglican Church of Canada. People who are listed in Canadian censuses as ‘Church of Ireland’ are Anglicans from Ireland. ‘Episcopal’ or ‘Episcopalian’ are the American terms for Anglican; if you find your relations listed in this way, you may suspect they are of American origin or have spent time in the USA. Do not confuse this with ‘Methodist Episcopal’ which is something else entirely. Scottish Anglicans belong to the Episcopal Church of Scotland; the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian.