Canada, 3 Important Types of Books (National Institute)

Canadian Parliamentary Companion
For anyone with family members who were involved with provincial or federal government, the Canadian Parliamentary Companion can give you a great deal of biographical information on a relative.

The Canadian Parliamentary Companion has been published annually since 1867. Its name is now the Canadian Parliamentary Guide, but the content and format of both have remained consistent. Both books cover persons working for the Canadian Government and provincial and territorial Governments as well. Since 1982/1983, the Guide has been published in both English and French.

To the genealogist, the most important aspect of the Canadian Parliamentary Guide or Canadian Parliamentary Companion is the biographical section. It presents short biographies of all sitting Members of the House of Commons, the Senate, and the Provincial and Territorial Legislatures.

These biographies indicate:


 * Date and place of birth
 * Name of parents
 * Marital status
 * Date of marriage
 * Name of spouse (or former name of spouse)
 * Name of offspring
 * Educational attainment
 * Career path
 * Political and Private Interests

These books are available at the Library and Archives Canada, as well as many Provincial Archives, University Libraries, Provincial Governmental libraries, and local libraries. Some of the older books are available online through Google Books.

Phone Books
Old phone books and city directories can be a great resource to the genealogist. By finding out the address of a relative, you can then make educated guesses as to the schools the children attended, the church the family attended, whether the family lived a well-to-do area of town, etc. If you can find a series of telephone books, you can also determine when the family first settled in town, how often they moved, etc. There are a few cautions, however. Directories are/were not like censuses: if a person did not wish to be included they could opt out. It also took considerable time to produce the volumes and so there was an inherent time lag between the listing of a person and the distribution of the books. Therefore, if a person was not listed in 1906 but was in 1907, it is strongly possible that the person arrived in the area in 1906. In some cases, a family would be “hidden” because they rented rooms or boarded and only the home owner or main tenant was listed in the directory.

Many libraries and archives have old copies of telephone books. Fortunately for researchers, the Bell Telephone Archives in Montreal made microfiche copies of their old phone books, and gave the appropriate copies to local libraries. For example, the Stratford Public Library has the microfiche copies of their old phone books.

City Directories
At first glance, city directories are similar in content to telephone directories. However, they can reveal a great deal more information than a mere telephone directory can.

The first directory in Canada was published in 1790—the Directory of the City and Suburbs of Quebec. The second edition came out in 1791, but there was not another one released until 1822. The Library and Archives Canada bibliography Canadian Directories, 1790–1987: a Bibliography, by Mary E. Bond tells you what directories survive, and who holds them. This bibliography lists 1200 directories covering 21,500 places across Canada. This book lists places by the current name. If your ancestors lived in Berlin, you’ll want to look in the section for Kitchener. If you’re not sure of the original name of a place, there are many books that list name changes (such as Place Names of Ontario by Floreen Carter).

There is also the Canadian Geographical Names website which is discussed in more detail later.

You can also check the Library and Archives Canada’s online catalog to see which directories the LAC holds. CIHM microfilmed many of the older directories, which means that copies of pages can be made—as the National Library does not allow photocopying of their paper copies of city directories.

Nowadays, many searchable databases and digital images of these directories are online. Start your search here. This will give you links to many online Canadian directories. Examples of other sites are British Columbia City directories from 1860 - 1955 which are searchable, although not every year is available. Toronto directories from 1833 to 2001 are available at the Toronto Public Library and many are online. Some pay-for-use sites also have collections of Canadian directories.

The early directories were created for businessmen, and thus included only those people whom the businessmen might wish to reach—other business men, trades people, etc. After about 1867, directories started including all men over the age of 18. Women were usually only listed if they were proprietors of a business or if they were widows. Eventually women who worked outside the home were listed as well, and by the 1930s and 40s, wives’ names were finally shown.

Of course, not everyone made it into directories. Some people were missed by not being at home when the enumerator called, or refused to give out their personal information. Then again, some people were left out on purpose. A. B. Cherrier, a compiler of a Quebec directory in the 1880s wrote, “Names of residents in houses of ill fame are not inscribed in the Street Key.”

So, now that you’ve found a directory, how can you get the most information from it? Directories can give you clues as to not only where a person lived, but also about the community where they went about their daily lives. As I mentioned before, you can take educated guesses about where the family worshipped, went to school, shopped, and went about their lives. It also gives you information about family relationships, and information about where people worked. Look at the following example:

So, what can we determine from this list of names and addresses? The first thing we can do is look at the residential patterns. To do this, we arrange the data by residence. In this way, relationships that might not otherwise be spotted become clear:

1920:

1925:

If a researcher merely examined the information of Alphonse, and didn’t look at any of the other Smithsons, a possible relationship could be missed. Although Alphonse is not in the household with William and Elizabeth in any year, all lived in the same house on Quebec Street in one year or the other. From this we can deduce that there is likely some connection.

You may have also noticed that the given names have changed from year to year. “WH” in 1920 became “William Hormidas” in 1925. There may be many WH Smithsons in the world, but the chances of a William Hormidas are much smaller. By checking through several years of directories, you can now have a better identifier to help locate more records on this individual.

Besides determining family relationships and names, even more information can be found in these directories. In the above example, we see that John F. Smithson died somewhere between 1920 and 1925. If there are more city directories available, you could probably narrow down the year of death, and from there check for an obituary and will / probate records. Checking to see where a person worked could lead you to employment records. If a person was a homeowner, you can check for real-estate records.

Again, a word of caution—you should always assume that the information is delayed one year. For example, if you were to move to Calgary this year, your name would not end up in the directory for this year, it would end up in next year’s directory instead. Remember this if you are trying to determine when a family moved to or away from a city. If your ancestor showed up in a city in an 1878 directory, it’s likely they moved to the city in 1877, and 1878 is the first year they were listed.

Post Office Householder Directories
You may have found when going through city directories that there were no directories published to cover the rural area that your family lived in. From 1964 to 1977 the post office tried to solve this problem by producing the Post Office Householder Directories. They produced lists of heads of household in every area of Canada not covered by commercial directories.

There is a volume for each federal riding in Canada not covered by a commercial directory. Names are listed alphabetically by post office, along with mailing address and occupation (although given in a coded form). The occupation code may prove useful in determining which family member is yours, especially if the name you’re searching for is a common one (if you’re looking for Mike Smith, and there are eight of them, it’s helpful to know that your Mike Smith was a carpenter. If you’re lucky, only one of the eight will be a carpenter).

Only one set of these books exists in Canada, and it’s at the Library and Archives Canada. Even the post office didn’t keep copies of its own. Some local libraries do have select copies, usually of the local area. Unfortunately, interlibrary loan is not a possibility which makes it difficult if you live at a distance from your area of interest or from Ottawa. It is best to contact Library and Archives Canada to see if it is possible to obtain photocopies of the information you require.

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