Canada, Helps for Using Records at Local Archives (National Institute)

The Archives of Ontario has a guide to municipal records which recommends those in search of the archives of a particular municipality to contact the municipal office or a local and regional archives. Since many of these documents are in demand not only by genealogists but by other historical researchers such as planning students, they may be available on microfilm and hence on interlibrary loan.

Something to keep in mind when searching for municipal documents is that there have often been changes of name and of jurisdiction over the years, and even in the way municipalities in some provinces have been organized. It is always wise to do a little geographical research ahead of time in the area which interests you to ensure you know what changes may have occurred in the municipal names of that region. To neglect this may cause a lot of extra work.

For example, a woman unfamiliar with the name changes in Ontario municipalities over the past three decades had visited her ancestors’ home in the current Regional Municipality of Durham. Once she was back home she spent a long time searching the census of 1881 and 1891 for Durham County trying to find them but without luck. Eventually she appealed to a librarian in Ontario for help. Once he heard the name of the village, he was able to point out that although it was now in the Regional Municipality of Durham, in the past it had been in Ontario County, Ontario. The similarity of names between the county and the regional municipality had confused her, but the areas covered by the two are quite different.

Sometimes there are published municipal records, particularly published council minutes, which may be found in an archive or also in a library. Municipal records may also be found in places other than the official municipal archives. This is especially true of early records which may have been kept in someone’s home before the advent of a town hall or similar structure. They continued to be in private hands, until someone decided to donate them to a suitable archive. This may not be the official archives. It is almost certain that with long runs of municipal records, or records of other bodies such as school boards, there will be missing volumes which have become separated from the rest on some occasion and never restored. Researchers should be aware of this difficulty and remember that the missing volumes may well be found in some other repository, or may resurface at a later time. This is another reason for returning to consult the catalogues of archives examined many years previously.

A very rich and yet elusive class of records which are often found in local archives are the various kinds of personal papers (diaries, letters, memoirs). They do not need to have been generated by the researcher’s own family members to be useful, because those by their neighbours or associates may well mention them.

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