Legislative Acts and Ontario Genealogy

Over the past few years I've been looking at the acts that have been passed by the Government of Canada and also the Legislature of Ontario to help be better understand notations made on records, why some of the documents we use in our research are the way they are, and when the various laws came into effect or changed what we use.

For example, often folks state that the civil registration of birth, marriages, and deaths in Ontario didn't start until 1 Jul 1869. But where did that date come from? It came from "An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths" found as Cap. XXX (AKA Chapter 30) "Passed in the Session Held in the Thirty-second Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria Being the Second Session of the First Parliament of Ontario".

Clipping of the act title for the Second Session of the First Parliament of Ontario (1868-1869), Chapter 30, "An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths.

However, what many folks don't realize is that the civil registration of marriages actually started much earlier than that. Hopefully in a future blog post I will touch upon the requirement to register marriages in Canada West and Upper Canada before this act took effect such as "20 Vic Cap. LXVI - An Act to amend the Laws relating to the solemnization of Matrimony in Upper Canada" from 1857.

Why would we want to look at the acts. They are just boring and filled with "lawyer-talk".

Just a disclaimer, I am not a lawyer or a parliamentarian.

Let's dispel the notion that the acts are filled "lawyer-talk" at the start. 

I've read a number of the acts passed by the Parliament of Canada and Legislature of Ontario, and I've actually found them to be fairly readable.

They can be dry reading but the information contained within can help us understand why something might not be found on a form. Such as "In registering a birth of an illegitimate child, is shall not be lawful for the name of any person to be entered as the father, unless at the joint request of the mother and of the person acknowledging himself to be the father..."

Boring, yes. But readable.

Over time, we might even find the act being updated with additional clarifications that the lawmakers never dreamed of when the act was first passed.

So where can we find these acts?

For Ontario it all depend on the time period.

If we are looking for legislative acts passed prior to Confederation on 1 Jul 1867, then I will turn to
"British North American Legislative Database, 1758-1867" hosted by the University of New Brunswick. You can search on key words, filter by the province, and sort on the year the act was passed.

For example, maybe you are interested in reading about "An Act to provide more effectually for taking the Periodical Census of the Province. 30th August, 1851." found in 14 & 15 Victoria, Chapter 49:

Screen capture from the British North American Legislative Database, 1758-1867 showing the page for "An Act to provide more effectually for taking the Periodical Census of the Province. 30th August, 1851", 14 & 15 Victoria, chapter 49.

I can read the transcribed act and even download the images of the original act to my computer. 

For acts passed by the the Legislature of Ontario after Confederation, I will often turn to the Osgoode Hall Law School's Osgoode Digital Commons' Statutes collections. This is where I've found the annually published statutes and revised statutes as passed by the Ontario Legislature.

Screen capture of the Osgoode Digital Commons Ontario: Revised Statutes advanced search for "vital statistics" in the Title.

In the screen capture above, I've done an advanced search for "vital statistics" in the title of the Ontario Revised Statutes. It returned back 8 results. I can then download the specific act or acts to my computer as a PDF for reading for free.

What about the acts passed by Parliament in Ottawa?

Why would I want to look at those acts?

The biggest reason is that until 1930, divorces in Ontario could only be granted by an Act of Parliament. That changed with the passing of 20-21 George V, Chap. 14, "An Act to provide in the province of Ontario for the dissolution and annulment of Marriage", assented to on 30 May 1930.

We can search for these federal Acts of Divorces using the database on the Library and Archives Canada site: "Acts of Divorce, 1841-1968". Keep in mind that this is still hosted under the old LAC site so the URL will be changing sometime in the future. However, all that database will return are the names of the petitioner and spouse, a reference, a year, and a citation. That's good start but we probably want to read the act itself.

Let's take a look at the divorce of Clarice Sheppard from James Henry Smith found in the "Acts of Divorce" database. The reference is the "Statutes of Canada" in 1916 with a citation of 88. I picked this one since it was the first one that appeared when I searched for a spouse with the surname of Smith.

We are fortunate that the "Acts of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada" AKA "Statutes of Canada" have been digitized and made available on the Internet Archive. Filtering on just the year 1916, two volumes are returned: "Acts of the Parliament of Canada (12th Parliament, 6th Session, Chapter 1-29), 1916" and "Acts of the Parliament of Canada (12th Parliament, 6th Session, Chapter 30-94), 1916". Since the citation from the database stated "88", I would look in the volume containing chapters 30 to 94. Very quickly I was able to find "An Act for the relief of Clarice Smith" recorded in 6-7 George V, Chap. 88. Not only do we find when the divorce was granted but also where they were residing (Toronto, Ontario), when and where they were married (25 Oct 1913 in Chicago, Illinois), and the reason for the divorce.

I will also sometime look in the "Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources" hosted by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

For more modern acts from about 2000 onwards, I will usually head over to CanLII to search their Legislation databases or the Law Society of Ontario "Great Library" and their library guide "On the Web: Where to Find Canadian Legislation" to point me to where I can find the current legislation.

 

As an aside, you might have noticed acts include something like "6-7 George V" or "20 Vic". Instead of writing the year of when the session of the legislature or parliament was held, earlier acts included the year of the reigning monarch. To help me figure out the year I will turn to the "Convert Regnal Years to Calendar Years" page hosted on Barry Sharples' Bosbury History Resource. Looking up the 20th year of Victoria's reign it tells us that the year is 1857.

Often when I have a question about why something was included or changed on a form, or I find a semi-cryptic ink stamp on a record, I've found that reading the legislation can help me understand what I've found. 

Hopefully this will also help you out in your family history research endeavors.

1921 Censuses of England, Wales, Channel Islands, Isle of Man on Ancestry

Up until January 6, 2025, the only place you could view the 1921 censuses of England, Wales, Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man from home was Findmypast. This census had been released on the Findmypast site in January 2022. However, to access that census from home, one either had to have what Findmypast currently calls their "Everything" subscription or pay either for the transcription or to see the images associated with a household on a per household view. That all changed earlier this year when Ancestry added that 1921 census to their catalogue since Findmypast no longer had the exclusive rights to host the images online.

Before we look at this census on Ancestry, it might be a good idea for folks to first read the Findmypast blog page "The 1921 Census is now online for the very first time" and also follow the links on Findmypast's help page "The 1921 Census of England & Wales" as a refresher to understand what was captured and how it was taken. I'll let you read it yourself. When that census was released online in 2022 there was also a flurry of blog posts writing about it such as John Reid's "1921 Census Experience" on Anglo Celtic Connections.

However, before jumping into the images on Ancestry, I want to highlight a few things:

The first issue with this census is that it wasn't taken on Sunday, April 24, 1921 like what it written on all the forms. Due to the "industrial crisis" (mass strikes!) happening at the time, the census had been postponed until June 19, 1921. Of course this can throw a wrench into finding your kin since they may have already started their holidays a bit early. That happened to me with one of my distant cousins.

The next is that this census, unlike the 1950 census of the USA and 1931 Census of Canada which were transcribed using AI enhanced handwriting recognition technology, was transcribed by humans. That is why it took about six months for it to be published with a searchable index on Findmypast instead of the days we are now seeing on Ancestry for newly released censuses.

Finally, when you viewed the image of the census page with the folks listed at an address on Findmypast, you also had the option to view the "Extra" images associated with that page:

• "Cover" of the enumerator's book
• "Address", which was written on the other side of the page that had all the details about who resided at that location. The "address" included details to help one to create a "good" citation.
  
• "Map" showing the big picture of the area to be enumerated
• "Plans of Division" that describes that enumerator district

Findmypast made it easy for us to access all those extra images. If you retrieved the image of the page with the people at a place from Findmypast, hopefully you also downloaded the extra images to your computer for safekeeping and later review.

But what it you didn't spend the money from your genealogy budget (yes, I have a budget for my research) on either the "Everything"subscription on Findmypast or buying access to the individual images? Maybe you only purchased the right to view the transcription on Findmypast and didn't pay to view the image.

Well, if you have a subscription with Ancestry that includes the censuses of England, you now have access to the transcriptions and images without paying extra.

Yet like most of our genealogy and family history research, there are a few gotchas with using the census on Ancestry:

The first is there currently isn't a single search page on Ancestry for the 1921 census for England, Wales, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man like we found on Findmypast. But we can use the existing "UK Census Collection" search page like I show here to search for Harry Warrener. I used the "Residence Date" search box at the bottom of the form to limit the search to exactly 1921 (highlighted in a red oval).

Screen capture of Ancestry's "UK Census Collection" search page looking for Harry Warrener with a Residence Date of exactly 1921, taken 14 Jan 2025.

By doing this, you can easily search the individual Ancestry 1921 census collections of

• 1921 Channel Islands Census
• 1921 England Census
• 1921 Isle of Man Census
• 1921 Wales Census

all in one go.

The next thing to understand is the source of the transcription used to create the searchable index.

Here I've recreated the search I used to find the page with the enumeration of Annie Leontine Chipman. I know we should treat each person in our tree equally but Annie has become a favourite of mine just due to the interesting life she led, challenges she presented me in finding her in the records, and what some of those records have taught me in terms of how they were created (Annie Leontine Chipman and a Census Mystery).

Screen capture of Findmypast's 1921 Census of England & Wales search results for Leontine Chipman, taken 14 Jan 2025.

Here are the results of the same query on Ancestry:

Screen capture of Ancestry's UK Census Collection search results for Leontine Chipman with a residence date of exactly 1921, taken 14 Jan 2025.

Everything seems to be same. My guess is that Findmypast, as part of their agreement with The National Archives (TNA) in England, has given TNA the transcriptions and Ancestry is using those transcriptions instead of creating their own.

Why do I think that?

1921 census of England, Devonshire, Coombe House, St. George's Road, Torquay, extract; digital images, Findmypast, Findmypast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 30 Jul 2024); citing RG 15/10483 Sch 53, registration district 272, sub district 6, enumeration district 31.

In looking at the entry for Leontine Chipman on the image of the occupants of "Coombe House" on St. George's Road in Torquay, Devon we can clearly see that the birthplace for Leontine is "Cornwallis Nova Scotia". I'm suspecting the transcriber tried to fit a square peg in a round hole and selected "Cornwall, England" from a drop down box. 

In a chat with John Reid, he asked Gemini what was written in that box in the image and Gemini came back with:

"The image appears to say:
Cornwallis
Nova Scotia
Let me know if you have any other images you need transcribed!"

This transcription error made it a bit of a challenge to find her initially since she should have been in Northumberland County, England instead of holidaying in Devonshire. I had initially discounted that index entry since it stated Cornwall and not Nova Scotia or Canada as her birth place. If it hadn't been for the kindness of a stranger who had a full subscription with 1921 census access on Findmypast to quickly check the image from the record for me I would never have found her. But this quirk also seems to indicate that the transcriptions on Ancestry originally came from the work done by Findmypast.

When it comes to viewing the images on Ancestry, if we want to see almost all the same images that are pointed to on Findmypast, we need to do a bit of work ourselves.

Screen capture of the top part of Ancestry's page from the 1921 England Census for Leontine Chipman, taken 14 Jan 2025.

When we look at the details page for Leontine Chipman and click on the image shown, we are brought to the page in the census with the details recorded for everyone at the location as of midnight 19 Jun 1921.

To view the other side of that page with the street address, registration district number, registration sub-district number, and enumeration district number we need to go to the next image. On Findmypast, this is the image they labelled as "Address". 

If you are like me and save any of the images you find about your kin to your computer, make sure you also save this one too.

You will also probably want to go to the first image of the image filmstrip for that Enumeration district to get the other details about the enumeration district and also the "series piece number" for your source citation. The series piece number is the number after the RG15 that was written on the page when it was archived at The National Archives.

Cover page for Registration District 272, Registration Sub-district 6, Enumeration District 30 & 31 with the RG and Series Piece Number written on the page.

What about the "Plan of Division" pages that were linked to on Findmypast? They are from RG114 at The National Archives. That takes a bit more effort to locate on Ancestry since they are stored a bit differently. On Ancestry we need to browse the images, pick the county we are interested, select the appropriate name of the registration district, and then select "Not Stated" as the Sub-registration district.

In the case of where Leontine was residing when the census took place, on that "Cover" page from the enumerator's book, we can faintly read "Newton Abbot" beside the number 272 as the registration district. Next we need to walk through the images to find the "Plan of Division" page for 272 number 6. On Ancestry's filmstrip, that was found on image 203 of 278. Finally we want to location the page for Enumeration District 30 and 31 which is located on images 255 and 256 where we learn the boundary descriptions of those two enumeration districts.

As for the maps of the registration districts provided by Findmypast as one of the "extra" images, those appear to be from The National Archives RG 18 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C16337741) but they don't seem to have been added to the Ancestry collection for the 1921 census. Using The National Archives site I as able to quickly browse through the descriptions to location registration district 272 to find that RG 18/1103 is a "Collage of Ordnance Survey map sheets cut, mounted and annotated to show the following registration districts as used for the 1921 census...District 272, sub-district 6: Torquay" (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C990371). Alas, I've also not been able to find these maps on sites other than Findmypast. So if you know of a site with the TNA RG 18/830-1465 collage of maps, please let me know!

Hopefully with the information I've provided, you will be able to better document in your tree on Ancestry all your kin who were in England, Wales, Channel Islands, or Isle of Man when that 1921 census was taken.

Have fun in your noble quest to learn more about your family lines!

Census of the Prairie Provinces, 1926 now on Ancestry...sort of

Up until now, we could only search for folks who lived in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in the Census of the Prairie Provinces that started on June 1st, 1926 on FamilySearch in their "Canada, Prairie Provinces Census, 1926" collection via the "Canada, Prairie Provinces, Census, 1926" collection specific search page or using the Library and Archives Canada's "Census search" system. FamilySearch and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) both provide access to this census for free. The FamilySearch site even has a pretty good search system that also searches for variations of names, something that the LAC search can't do for us.

So why would we care that Ancestry now includes this census, labelled as "1926 Prairie Census of Canada", as part of their catalogue?

Many folks have their online tree, whether it be public or private, on Ancestry and many like to have one central place to search for information and record details about their ancestors. Of course, Ancestry isn't the only genealogy focused research site but it is probably the one used by the most people. In my case, along with Ancestry, I use almost all the major genealogy related sites in my research (budget permitting!), plus many others sites hosted by organizations such universities, libraries, archives, museums, and private individuals. So I've been using this census for some time now to help me document my Prairie kin.

But back to Ancestry and their "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" collection.

Screen capture of the top part of the "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" search page on Ancestry taken 9 Jan 2025.

On the Ancestry search page for the "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" we can search by the usual personal information such as their first, middle, and last names, along with when and where they were born. We can also search on additional details such gender, marital status, relation to the head of the household, whether they could speak English or French, could they read or write, ethnicity, citizenship, and immigration date. We can also search on the census details such as district and sub-district numbers.

However, you might notice something missing on the right side of the search page. Unlike with the other Canadian censuses that Ancestry has made available on their site, there is no way to browse the images of the pages.

That's because this collection is just an index and the images of the census pages aren't available on Ancestry (at least at this time).

This creates a little bit of a problem since I always stress that we should always look at the images of the source material. 

Why? To see what has been excluded from the index transcription or to confirm that it is the right person we are looking at due to transcription challenges.

So how do we do that with this census?

To start with, you may have searched for the person in this census on Ancestry or it could have popped up as a hint. Here is a screen capture of the page on Ancestry with the details for Donald McMullen, my grandfather.

Screen capture of the Ancestry "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" collection details page for Donald McMullen, age 9 years, in Manitoba, Canada.

As you can see, there is no image on the left side of the index transcription information for us to click on and look at.

We are going to have to do a little bit of work to get to the image since we are going to visit the Library and Archives Canada "Census search" page. Why use the Library and Archives Canada "Census search" since FamilySearch has the same information? FamilySearch doesn't let us search using the enumeration district and sub-district information. The district information is useful for filtering down to just a single page or two when there are multiple people with the same name. Plus with LAC we don't even need an account to view the images.

So we need to write down a few details from that Ancestry details screen:

• Name
• Age
• Residence Place
• Enumeration District
• Sub-District

All these details came from the index on the Library and Archives Canada site. By the way, the index for this census on the LAC site originally came from the folks at FamilySearch.

Popping over the Library and Archives Canada "Census search" page I've filled in the key fields with the information from the Ancestry details screen for my grandfather, Donald McMullen:

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census search page with "1926 (Prairies)" selected, First name of "Donald", Last name of "McMullen", Age 9, in Manitoba with District number 17 and Sub-district number 19 specified in the "Where" "more" section.

Here I've selected to search only the "1926 (Prairies)" census in the "When" section.

In the "Who" section, I've typed in the name exactly how it was found spelled in the Ancestry details along with the age.

When I only selected the "1926 (Prairies)", the "Where" section greyed out all the provinces not covered in this census. This made it easy to only select Manitoba since that is the residence place listed in the details.

The next step is a little more advanced, I need to click on the "More" button under "Place" to display the district and sub-district search boxes. There I filled in the District number, 17 in this case, and Sub-district number of 19.

With all those details, only one result was returned.

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census search results page of the "1926 (Prairies)" for Donald McMullen, age 9 years, in Manitoba.

A few tips concerning the results page:

• If you need to change your search don't use your browser's back button. Instead, click on that "Modify search" link at the top to bring up the search screen again. Using the back button will often bring you to a empty search screen and you have to type all the information again.
  
• As tempting as it is, don't click on the "digital object(s)" image to view the page. You are going to want to click on the name of the person.

Clicking on the name brings us to the details page. If I had just clicked on the image, I wouldn't be able to see the details about the record on the LAC site that I will want to use in a citation (we all use citations, right?).

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census search details page of the "1926 (Prairies)" for Donald McMullen, age 9 years, in Manitoba, item ID number 7193049.

You can now view the image on your screen, print it on your printer, or download it to your computer.

If you choose to download the image to your computer you can either save just the page you at looking at as a JPG or save all the pages in that sub-district as a PDF. 

Census of the Prairie Provinces, 1926, Manitoba, enumeration district 17 Winnipeg South Centre, sub-district 19 Winnipeg (City), page 29; imaged, "Census search", Library and Archives Canada (http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=71934049&lang=eng : accessed 9 Jan 2025); citing ecopy number e011232194.

No matter what you choose to do, you can now review all the details recorded about the person for yourself. One detail that we don't find in the transcription is the address where the person was residing. This could be a street address for a town or city, or the section, township, range, and meridian that we can use to learn more about the property.

Have fun searching this census for your kin who resided in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta in 1926!

Finding a Will of an English Earl or What's in a Name?

In our genealogy and family history research we've all probably come across challenges with finding someone in the records when searching for them by their name. The issue could be a problem with the transcription used to create the index such as what I found for the household of Thomas S. Pattillo inthe 1911 Census of Canada where the surname was originally transcribed as "Pattires" by the folks at Ancestry.

1911 Census of Canada, population schedule, Nova Scotia, Colchester district (41), Truro sub-district (25), p. 13, dwelling 113, family 125, household of Thomas S. Pattires [Thomas S. Pattillo], digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 13 Nov 2024); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm T-20358.

Maybe the civil or church authority who recorded the name in an official document spelled the name as they heard it. I came across that challenge for the household of John Haughton in the 1881 Census of Canada where the enumerator recorded the name as "Hutton".

1881 Census of Canada, population schedule, Ontario, Simcoe North district (139), Tiny sub-district (H), division 2, p. 61, dwelling 250, family 254, household of John Hutton, digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 13 Nov 2024); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-13251.

We might even come across cases where a nickname or diminutive of the name is recorded. Possibly someone was named after their great-aunt Agnes but they go by the name Nancy since they think that Agnes sounds old-fashioned.

Then there is the interesting case a patron at a recent joint Ottawa Public Library - Ottawa Branch of Ontario Ancestors Genealogy Drop-In brought to the group. She was looking for help in locating the will of the 12th or 13th Earl of Derby as part of her efforts to confirm a family story of a possible undocumented child of one of those two Earls.

It should be easy to find the will I thought.

The first thing I did was to look up the details about the 12th and 13th Earls of Derby using Wikipedia to find out their birth names and when they died. I could also have looked up the entries in Burke's A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, the Privy Council, Knightage and Companionage. 

I learned the following details:

• 12th Earl of Derby: born Edward Smith-Stanley and died 21 Oct 1834
• 13th Earl of Derby: born Edward Smith-Stanley and died 30 Jun 1851

Since both of the Earls died before 1857, I can't use the "Search probate records for documents and wills (England and Wales)" site. At the drop-in, John Reid, one of our subject matter experts, suggested that we need to look in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) records since they cover the years 1384 to 1858. Since Ancestry has indexed and made available the images from the PCC wills in their "England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858" collection that's where I started.

And got absolutely nowhere!

I searched for any "Edward Smith-Stanley" who died around 1834 or 1851. I even searched for Edward Smith Stanley". I searched for all kinds of variations on the name and expanded the year range but there was no one who matched what I was looking for.

Since we only have an hour to help those dropping in, I put the searching aside and the group continued with the next question. But this was an itch that I just couldn't scratch. So at around 11 p.m. that night (it was one of those "I can't sleep" research itches) I dived back in this problem.

Might the will had been proved in another court such as the Prerogative Court of York or at a local court in England?

But first there was one other place I wanted to check for the Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills. That is The National Archives (England) "Wills 1384-1858" research guide since it has a search box. Instead of searching by name I searched for the keyword "Earl of Derby" (without quotes). I got back 18 results and two results got my immediate attention:

Reference:     PROB 11/1853/415
Description:     Will of The Right Honorable Edward Earl of Derby of Chester , Cheshire
Date:     25 November 1835
Held by:     The National Archives, Kew

and

Reference:     PROB 11/2140/271
Description:     Will of The Right Honorable Edward Earl of Derby of Angel Inn, John Street, Minories , City of London
Date:     22 October 1851
Held by:     The National Archives, Kew

So it seems that the wills for both the 12th and 13th Earls of Derby were proven in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. I could even download a digitized copy of both of those wills for free from The National Archives if I sign in with my free account.

Yet why couldn't I find these wills on Ancestry?

I puzzled over that for a few minutes and then noticed that nowhere in the description is his birth surname "Smith-Stanley" recorded. Could Ancestry have taken his title and used it as his last name?

In searching for any "Edward" with the last name of "Earl" who died around 1834 only one entry was returned in the results:

Screen capture of the entry from Ancestry of the "England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858" collection index page found by searching for the first name "Edward", last name "Earl", who died around 1834.

Same with searching for any "Edward" with the last name of "Earl" who died around 1851:

Screen capture of the entry from Ancestry of the "England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858" collection index page found by searching for the first name "Edward", last name "Earl", who died around 1851.

After reviewing the images, I was certain that was them. It only took me less than two hours of effort to find the will and to understand why I couldn't find the information during our drop-in.

---

Now that we know how those copies of the wills of the peerage of the United Kingdom have been possibly recorded in the index of the "England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858" database on Ancestry we can try our hand at finding other wills of nobility proven in that court.

We can find other interesting wills of the English and Welsh peerage in this Ancestry collection by searching on the rank of nobility such as Earl/Countess, Viscount/Viscountess, Marquess/Marchioness, or Duke/Duchess, as their last name. But Duke and Earl are also possible actual last names. How do we filter out the non-peerage? By adding an exact Keyword match of "Honorable" or "Noble". You can even leave off the rank of nobility and just search use the exact match Keyword of "Highness" to find wills of some princes and princesses. I even came across the copy of the will of Her Most Excellent Majesty Charlotte, Queen of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland by just using the exact Keyword search of "Majesty" and leaving out all the other details.

Start of the will of Charlotte, Queen of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, probated 26 Jan 1819; "England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858," Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 Nov 2024); citing The National Archives (Kew), PROB 11/1612.

So be creative when you are doing your searches by name, especially when it comes to those of who are Peers of the United Kingdom!

The Harry Creagen Fonds of Canadian RFC and RNAS Airmen

During my visit to the Library and Archives at the Ingenium Centre in Ottawa to look at the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, the archivist, Adele Torrance, mentioned that part of a collection held by the Library and Archives at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM) in Ottawa had been digitized by Ancestry. Just a note, this is not the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) that we often use in our Canadian research.

The Harry Creagen Fonds were pulled together by Mr. Creagen between 1938 and the 1990s. Mr. Creagen had a life long interest in aviation and he created a collection mainly concerning Canadians who served during the First World War in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), and also the Royal Air Force which was created by merging the RFC and RNAS in 1918.

McKinlay, Ken, Stack one of three of banker boxes of the Harry Creagen Collection, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

What the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives received were a number of files organized by subjects and placed in bankers boxes. The files are still in those boxes at the archives and haven't been added into their catalogue...yet. It's a long process and there is limited staff to do all that work. 

I had the fun and pleasure of actually looking through those boxes when I visited the Library and Archives at the CASM when I was looking for information about the Royal Naval Air Service Wing No. 3 and one of their pilots, Gordon Stuart Harrower, a Canadian from the Montreal area. 

Honestly, it really was fun!

It's not often that one gets to explore a collection with no idea of what may be found. With the aid of the archivist, Adele, we spent about an hour looking in the boxes and file folders to understand how the material was filed and finding material of specific interest to my research task for the day. Remember, this material hasn't been entered into the CASM catalogue and all we had to go on were the labels on the boxes and a subject matter list of the material that is organized by Mr. Creagen's filing cabinet drawers. 

McKinlay, Ken, File folders found in one box from the Harry Creagen Collection, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

One sort of offbeat file I came across was what I'm guessing is an English transcription or abstract of the Jagdgeschwader Nr. 1 Victory Log. You might be asking why this might be of interest. This is the German squadron sometimes referred to as "The Flying Circus" that was led by Manfred von Richthofen, AKA the Red Baron. These pages list the date, pilot, the type of allied aircraft shot down, where it happened and the kill number for that pilot. It also records when a German pilot of JG 1 was wounded or killed. As with any collection, until you start to dive into the records, you just never know what you will come across.

Then there are the boxes of the index cards created by Mr. Creagen.

McKinlay, Ken, Boxes of index cards from the Harry Creagen Collection, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

It is this part of the collection that has been digitized by Ancestry.

Before rushing over to Ancestry to look for these digitized index cards, they aren't on Ancestry. Instead you will find them on Fold3 or Forces War Records. These two sites hold many of the military collections digitized by Ancestry and they may be pointed to from indexes on Ancestry. Where you will find the digitized index cards online is in the Canada, WWI, RCAF Pilot Cards on Forces War Records. You will also find it on Fold3 in their Canada, WWI, RCAF Pilot Cards collection. Basically, the same collection but on two different Ancestry owned sites.

So what will you possibly find written on those index cards?

As I mentioned, I was curious about Gordon Stuart Harrower of Montreal. One of his daughters married into a branch in my family tree. I had stumbled across a mention of Mr. Harrower serving in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War and the research itch took hold.

Here are the cards I found by searching for his name in that collection on Forces War Records.

If I didn't already know the date of his death, I now have it. But the index cards for Mr. Harrower held other clues such as the squadrons he served in, when he left the service, and even that he trained in Texas. I also found out that he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. Maybe some day I'll do a blog post about Mr. Harrower since, in addition to his service, he was trained at Wright Brothers Field and is mentioned on a plaque at the Wright Brothers Memorial in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

Along with looking at the Harry Creagen Fonds, the archivist also took the time to look through the CASM catalogue of books for material that may have shed light into the Royal Naval Air Service and Canadians aviators in the First World War.

McKinlay, Ken, A selection of books from the CASM Library concerning the RNAS and other topics of interest, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

They have a wonderful library in addition to their archives and I know I could easily spend a full afternoon just perusing the books on the shelves. They even have a flight log book copy collection of log books that have been donated to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Archives of military and civilian pilots.

I really can't thank Adele Torrance enough for taking the time out of her day to show me the Harry Creagen Fonds in the CASM vault and also searching the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives catalogue for additional books and material. 

If you are looking to visit the Library and Archives at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, check out their page at https://ingeniumcanada.org/aviation/library-and-archives for the opening hours, location, and contact information. Don't forget to get an admission ticket to explore all the neat exhibits after you finish your research!

Researching Those Who Served Canada in the First and Second World Wars

McKinlay, Ken, "Cross of Sacrifice, National Military Cemetery," Photograph, 10 November 2018, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

With Remembrance Day rapidly approaching I've updated my two pages under my "Links of Interest" that I use in my own research:

• First World War: Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War
• Second World War: Researching the Canadians Who Served 

I am also giving several talks in the next few weeks concerning researching those who served Canada in the First and Second World Wars:

Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War - Join me online for an exploration into the process of uncovering the military service of our Canadian ancestors who served in the First World War. Through real-life case studies, this presentation will guide you through the rich array of resources available for tracing the military history of your relatives. Learn about the contents of the service files, additional archival records, and other invaluable tools to bring the past to life and gain a deeper understanding of your family's wartime legacy. 

• 11 Nov 2024 at 7 pm ET: Bruce County Genealogical Society - Register via Zoom at Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War (https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UEPUe3QRSwem1kW6CA1cLA#/registration)

 

Second World War: Researching the Canadians Who Served - This presentation delves into the wealth of records available for researching Canadians who served during the Second World War. We’ll explore both the poignant records of those who gave their lives in service to Canada and the rich archival resources that reveal the stories of those who survived. Whether your interest lies in uncovering military service details, personal narratives, or broader historical insights, this session hopefully provides the tools and guidance to deepen your understanding of those who served Canada.

• 18 Nov 2024 at 7 pm ET: Sudbury District Branch of Ontario Ancestors: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tdOyvrjoqHta5RnLfLzuwLnh9xvaGbRdE#/registration
  
• 24 Nov 2024 at 2 pm ET: Halton-Peel Branch of Ontario Ancestors: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUofuqqrTgoHNMKs-qiVWTp3Z99kflBJMzo#/registration
  

 

 

McKinlay, Ken, "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, National War Memorial," Photograph, 26 June 2022, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records

Recently John Reid, of the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog fame, and I paid an in-person visit to the Library and Archives at the Ingenium Centre located beside the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa. Please note, this is not the same as Library and Archives Canada, so don't drop by the LAC building on Wellington if you are wanting to look at these actual records. 

"Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 30 Sep 2024), Miscelanious Records > 1950-1955 > Ships-Memorabilia > image 2 of 9, Canadian Pacific Steamships crest; citing Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, "Ships - Memorabilia, 1950-1955", reference CPS-04-0509 folder.

We were there to learn about their collaboration with Ancestry to digitize and make available the records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company (CPS). John Reid wrote about our visit there in his post "Resources of Ingenium Library and Archives". The digitized records were released online in June 2024 in Ancestry's "Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981" collection. It is important to note that not all the items in the collection have been digitized. Some of the large foldout ship diagrams and other large documents weren't digitized.

What makes this collection exciting for genealogy and family history researchers is the time period it covers. For Canada, we generally only have incoming passenger lists up to 1935. But what about after that time? This is where you might get lucky and find your kin mentioned in the records if they sailed on one of the Canada Pacific Steamship ships between 1897 to 1981.

However, before you dive into the records make sure you read the descriptions of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Limited fonds and their sub-series hosted on Archeion. These description gives you the history of the CPS along with details about the various series to help you understand what you might find.

Here is the search screen on Ancestry:

Screen capture of Ancestry's "Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981" collection (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 24 Sep 2024).

If you are like me, you may have recorded the names of the ships and when your ancestors sailed on them in your genealogy software. Yet how do we know which ships were operated by the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company? Fortunately we have a list of the ships operated by the CPS found on Wikipedia in their "List of ships of CP Ships" article. 

Using that list of ships I searched my database and found about 35 people who sailed on the various Empress and Duchess ships of the CPS. Out of that list I actually came across passenger indexes for only two of them. Yet that is still two more lists of passengers than what I started with. Here is a page from the index for tourist class on board the Empress of Britain from Liverpool to Quebec with my 2nd cousin twice removed, Cora McTavish, listed.

"Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 27 Sep 2024), Cora E. McTavish, age 46, arrived 24 Sep 1959 at Quebec, P.Q. onboard the Empress of Britain; citing Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, Reference Number: X0450.

You might be wondering how I knew that Cora was on this ship? I used the BT27 series of records held by The National Archives in England and made available on various genealogy site in searchable databases such as Ancestry's "UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960" collection and Findmypast's "Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960" collection.

Going to the first page of that passenger index on Ancestry I found that the Empress of Britain arrived in Quebec City on 24 Sep 1959. Along the way, the ship also stopped at Greenock, Scotland.

"Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 27 Sep 2024), Passenger Index cover page for the Empress of Britain, arrived 24 Sep 1959 at Quebec, P.Q.; citing Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company.

Yet what else can one find in this collection?

I also came across her name in the list of Tourist Passengers when she went from Montreal to Liverpool on board the Empress of England. She is listed with her cabin numbers along with an indicator that she was in the first seating for dinner.

"Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 27 Sep 2024), Cora E. McTavish, Tourist Passengers, Empress of England, 21 Jul 1959, from Montreal to Liverpool via Greenock; citing Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, Reference Number: CPS-01-0030.

Maybe I'm interested in what may have happened on the voyage of the Empress of Britain that Cora was on when she came back to Canada. Using the "Browse this collection" on the right side of the search screen we can also browse the collections for other tidbits of information for record groups such as:

• Crew of Passenger Lists
• Immigration Regulations and Policy
• Journals, Logs, and Ship Movement Books
• Miscelanious Records [yes, that is a typo on Ancestry's part!]
• Named Ships
• Programmes, Menues, and Events
• Promotional Artwork
• Schedules and Fares
• Ships Officers, or Company Officials
• Voyage Reports

Along with the date of arrival or departure, often the key to finding these other documents that can shed some light on the voyages of our ancestors is the voyage number. 

If I didn't know voyage number from that manifest, I might have then looked for the Empress of Britain departing on September 18, 1959 in the Movement Book found in "Journals, Logs, and Ship Movement Books" record group.

"Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 27 Sep 2024), Journals, Logs, and Ship Movements Books > 1959 > Movement Book No. 40 > image 29  of 226, p 10, Empress of Britain, Voyage 55; citing Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, Movement Book No. 40.

There are also the voyage reports. With just a few clicks of the mouse I found out the details about Voyage No. 55, both from England to Canada and the return back to England.

"Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62578/ : accessed 27 Sep 2024), Voyage Reports > 1959 > Captain's General Voyage Report-Empress of Britain-Voyage No. 55 > image 2 of 29; citing Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Records of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company.

In this sort of report we find the ports visited, times of arrivals and departures at the various ports, number of passengers embarking and debarking at the various ports, possibly how any cargo was stored, the names and positions of the officers, if a stowaway was found (yes, on the return to England), reports by the doctor (two deaths during the return to England), and a daily summary of the happenings on board the ship.

I had mentioned that the larger fold out pages haven't been digitized by Ancestry from this collection. In some cases you will need to visit the Library and Archives at the Ingenium Centre in Ottawa to view these large scale documents and pages for yourself. However, sometimes other organizations have digitized the material they have on hand. Such was the case for the deck plans of the Empress of Britain from 1955-1959 when I found them in a digitized on The University of British Columbia library site within The Chung Collection.

The "Canada, Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, 1897-1981" collection on Ancestry is one of those collections where name searching only uncovers part of the story of your ancestor's trip. Be curious and explore the browsable series within this collection to learn more about their voyage.