Canadian Legal Records (National Institute)

Legal records can contain a great deal of genealogical information for those people lucky enough to have family members that have had run-ins with the legal system.

So, briefly, how do legal records work? Before we can find legal records, we first have to know how the court system in Canada works. In Canada, there are federal and provincial courts, but they do not constitute two separate systems as in the United States. In order from highest to lowest, there is the:

Supreme Court of Canada—has been the final court of appeal since 1949. Decisions are reported in the Supreme Court Reports.

Federal Court of Canada—continues the old Exchequer Court of Canada. It has both a Trial Division and a Federal Court of Appeal. Court decisions prior to 1970 are published in the Exchequer Court Reports. After 1970, decisions are reported in the Federal Court Reports.

Provincial Courts—Each Canadian province has trial level courts that have different names depending on the province (either the Supreme Court, the High Court of Justice or the Court of Queen’s Bench, depending on the province). Then, there is the appeal level, called either the Court of Appeal or the Appellate Division. Some provinces have county or district courts. Although most provinces still publish individual provincial reporters (books containing the information from the trials), there are several regional reporters:


 * Atlantic Provinces Reports—Cases from the courts of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.


 * Dominion Law Reports—Cases decided by both federal and provincial courts, and includes numerous cases decided by the superior courts of the provinces.


 * Western Weekly Reports—Cases decided by the courts of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory. Hopefully I haven’t lost anyone yet. Basically, before you go searching for a case, it’s best to know what province the trial took place in, and which court the trial took place in - Federal, Provincial, or Supreme.

The best place to go if you’re interested in finding a legal case is to the nearest university with a law library. The librarians there will help you search through the Consolidated Table of Cases, or if you’re lucky, they’ll have access to Westlaw (an online legal research service), or another legal database, and will be able to perform a search of a case for you. If you’re not sure if anyone in the family has ever done anything illegal, it still is a good idea to check out the last name of the family you’re interested in, just in case. You might find a member of the extended family getting charged with some minor offence.

Each province is in charge of its own legal records. If the case took place in a county or district court, the legal records are kept at the Provincial Archives for that province. For example, if I had a family member who was charged with robbery in Calgary, the records would eventually end up in the Provincial Archives of Alberta. In my ancestor’s case, the trial took place near North Bay, Ontario, so I was able to find the documents pertaining to the case at the Archives of Ontario.

Always remember, each province has laws regarding privacy, so a number of years must pass before records are made available to the public. In most cases 25 years must have elapsed before the records are made public.

Pages from Western Weekly Reports, Volume 65 (1968)

Western Weekly Reports, Volume 65 (1968) From the author’s collection



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