Canada Census Mortality Schedules - FamilySearch Historical Records

Canada

What is in this Collection?
Mortality schedules are death registers recorded at the national level, usually as part of a census. This collection consists of an index of the 1871 census mortality schedules for the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario.

The official enumeration date for this census was April 2, 1871, and these records cover deaths which occurred during the 12 months immediately prior to the census enumeration. The age given in the census was rounded up to what would have been the deceased’s age at his or her next birthday.

What Can these Records Tell Me?
Mortality schedule records usually include:


 * Name of deceased
 * Age of deceased
 * Year and place of birth
 * Month and place of death
 * Marital status
 * Religion

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know:
 * The name of your ancestor.
 * The place where your ancestor lived.
 * The approximate date of death.
 * The names of other family members and their relationships.

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information in the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the death information listed to find other documents like a death certificate, obituary, mortuary record, cemetery record, or probate record.
 * Use the information to find other records such as birth, christening, census, land and marriage records.
 * Use the information to find additional family members.
 * Repeat this process with additional family members found, to find more generations of the family.
 * Church Records often were kept years before government records were required and are a good source for finding ancestors before 1900.

I Can’t Find Who I’m Looking for, What Now?

 * Try viewing the original record to see if there were errors in the transcription of the name, age, residence, etc. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * Collect entries for every person who has the same surname. This list can help you identify possible relations that can be verified by records.
 * If you cannot locate your ancestor in the locality in which you believe they lived, then try searching records of a nearby locality in an area search.
 * Standard spelling of names typically did not exist during the periods our ancestors lived in. Try variations of your ancestor’s name, especially French versions.
 * Remember that sometimes individuals went by nicknames or alternated between using first and middle names. Try searching for these names as well.
 * Search the indexes and records of Canada Genealogy.
 * Search in the Canada Archives and Libraries.
 * Search in the FamilySearch Library Catalog

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):

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