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.

FamilySearch Full-Text Searching of Ontario Probate and Land Records

Thank you to John Reid of Anglo-Celtic Connections for the heads up on the addition of Canadian records to the Full-Text Search on FamilySearch in his blog post "***** FamilySearch Experimental Labs Search of Canadian Probate Records"

What is really exciting for genealogy and family history researchers researching their kin in Canada is that FamilySearch has now included two virtual collections: "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" and "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020". If you have been following my blog for any period of time, you know that I have a particular interest in Ontario land records, and that is what the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection includes. So I'm really excited to see this addition to the Full-Text Search on FamilySearch.

So what is this cool FamilySearch tool and where do we find it?

On FamilySearch there is a not too well-known area called FamilySearch Labs containing what FamilySearch calls "experiments". These experiments are features that the teams at FamilySearch are working on but they aren't quite ready to release as part of the main FamilySearch site. 

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs landing page (accessed 29 Aug 2024: https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/).

There is one experiment that quite a few people have been playing with and that is the "Expand your search with Full Text". This has many folks excited since it uses handwriting recognition (HWR) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to create word searchable index of various records. I've used this experiment to discover land records in Vermont that had my 6th great-grandmother's name mentioned in the documents. 

To enable this experiment, click on the "TRY IT" bar under "Expand you search with Full text". That will bring you to the "Find Results with Full-Text Search" landing page where you can give it a go.

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs experiment landing page for Full-Text Search" (accessed 29 Aug 2024 : https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text).

Before diving it to this experiment, please take the time to watch the view that they have linked to on the page. It might just save you some frustration in your searches.

But since I know most of you won't watch the video until later, let's jump in.

In the search box, as a keyword, just type in a name that you are interested in and press search. In my case, I used the surname "Smith" as my starting place since it is a common surname since I wanted to see what collections and provinces were included from Canada in this experiment.

It came back with 12,262,190 results from various countries.

This is where the fun begins. And it is a good sort of fun.

First of all, note the search tips on the right side of the page in the search pane. We can:

• use quotation marks to find an exact word or phrase. Example "Henry Jones"
  
• use the + symbol to include a specific word of phrase. Example: +Judith
• use the - symbol to exclude a specific word or phrase. Example: -John
• use the ? symbol to find different spellings. Example: Jens?n will return Jensen and Jenson
• use the * symbol to find different forms of a root word. Example: Car* will match car, cars, carriage, carpenter, etc.

Next, we want to reduce the number of items returned. This is where the "Filters" come in handy. We can filter on the collection name, year, place, and record type.

I've been finding it easier to first filter by the place.

Since I'm currently interested in the records found in Ontario, Canada, I'll select "Canada" then "Ontario" using the Place filter. I could even narrow it down further to a specific county and then possibly to the township or town. For now, I'll keep it at the Ontario, Canada level. However, the ten provinces of Canada all have results returned so these virtual collections have been made up from many collections on FamilySearch.

Next we can filter the results by collection. If you are searching for probate records such as wills, estate records, letters of administration, etc. then you will want to select the "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020" collection. If you are looking for entries found in the land record copy books for Ontario like I am, then you are wanting to select the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection. As an aside, FamilySearch is treating both of these collections has holding "Legal Records" as the record type.

For the "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020" collection I have noticed one caveat. They seem to have only applied the handwriting and OCR software against the digitized records that are accessible from anywhere. If the digitized material still has a key above the camera in the catalog listing, it may not have been added into this experiment.

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs Full-Text Search query for Luke McMullen in "Canada, Ontario" within the "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020" collection. (accessed 29 Aug 2024 : https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text).

From the screen capture above you, can see that there several items that have been found in the Lanark County probate estate files for my Luke McMullen. I searched for his name within quotes. If I already didn't have his file, now I can get it quickly. For Luke, when I was first looking for his file, I had to manually look through the image since the digitized index for all the years is still only accessing from a FamilySearch Affiliate or Centre.

Fortunately for me, the Ontario land record copy books don't have this sort of access restriction issue.

Looking for "Luke McMullen", I again used quotes for the keyword search, in the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection returned back 13 results.

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs Full-Text Search query for "Luke McMullen" in "Canada, Ontario" within the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection. (accessed 29 Aug 2024 : https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text).

You might come across records where the person was also a witness to the transaction. That's something that won't be mentioned in the land Abstract registers.

When it comes to Ontario land records we will also probably want to then find the Abstract Register of the property mentioned in the returned records to see if there were any other transaction that this experiment missed. To do that, we just need to read those instruments copied into the land record copy books to find the township, concession, and lot. Hopefully you still remember how to read cursive!

Although I have focused on just Ontario in this post, I did a search for Charles Howe in New Brunswick in the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection and it returned back a link to the image of his land petition in New Brunswick. I don't think I have this one in my files!

For the Quebec records, you might come across names in the "Québec, district judiciaire de Québec, tutelles et curatelles, 1639-1930" or "Lower Canada land petitions and related records, 1637-1842" collections on FamilySearch.

Just keep in mind that the handwriting recognition software has the same challenges you have when reading poor quality images or lousy handwriting. It won't be able to index those documents. But the doors it can open up for us will contain rooms full of treasure. 

Have fun in your searches!

Finding a War Bride in the Directorate of Movements Microfilms

After a year of writing new talks and updating my existing genealogy talks I finally took sometime this past month to do a bit of diving into the records of folks who married into my various lines in order to see what I was missing. One of those tasks was looking for folks found in the 1921 Census of England and also the 1939 Registration that took place in England. 

And that is where this story starts. 

I started looking into the life of Vera Beresford, born about 1920 in Manchester, England. I really didn't have much information about her, only what I gleaned from the service file of her husband Arnold Norman Richard Burfield. 

Arnold Burfield is my 3rd cousin once removed and he was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada on 2 Aug 1914. He enlisted to serve Canada in the Second World War and he was killing in action in Sicily on 23 Jul 1943 while with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. So I started by once again reviewing his service file which is now available online from Library and Archives Canada. The last time I had looked at his file was in 2012 and I actually had to go to LAC to view the original file. My genealogy research skills have advanced just a bit since then so I looked at his file a bit closer.

That is when I came across this memo in his file.

Canada, "Military Service Record: Burfield, Arnold Norman, Regimental Number C5652," memorandum from Director of Repatriation to Director of Records, dated 12 Jan 1945; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

It is a memorandum from the Director of Repatriation to the Director of Records dated 12 Jan 1945.

I realized I had missed this important clue in my earlier reviews of the file. It meant that his wife, Vera, was a war bride. That note states that Vera and her son Norman had arrived from overseas, ex W 779 on 6 Jan 1945. It also provided the destination address of her mother-in-law.

But what is that "ex W 779"?

Honestly, that took a bit of Google-fu to find that answer. I found it in the document "TrainShipSchedules39 45" that was uploaded to Scribd by David A Ryan on 23 Oct 2019. For those researching mass military personnel movements within Canada and also for ships going across the ocean during the Second World War, this document is a real treasure trove. It is described as:

"This document lists the unit serial numbers and embarkation locations for various Canadian military units between 1939 and 1945. It includes divisions, brigades, batteries, regiments, pioneer battalions, medical and supply units. The units embarked from locations across Canada like Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver as well as some from the UK."

Buried within that document I came across these items:

TS #	Serial #	Unit	Embarkation
1434	-	Ex-W-779 Dependents Special	Halifax
1435	-	Ex-W-779 Dependents Special	Halifax

The above table extract deals with the trains taking the dependents to their new Canadian homes.

The next two table extracts provide the dates, ships, and ports information.

Date	Destination	Date	Ship #	Ship Name
6-Jan-45	Halifax		W-779	Mauretania
6-Jan-45	Montreal		W-779	Mauretania
6-Jan-45	Various		W-779	Mauretania
6-Jan-45	Various		W-779	Mauretania

Ship#	Ship Name	Port	Sailing Date	Convoy
W-779	Mauretania	Halifax	6-Jan-45	-

So it looks like the ex W-779 in that memorandum is the ship Mauretania. No, this is not the Mauretania that was mentioned in the film "Titanic". This is the RMS Mauretania that was built in 1938.

Thanks to the posts by John Reid in his Anglo-Celtic Connections blog, the Canadian War Brides stories available on the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa site in their name index, and discussions with fellow researchers, I knew that many of the microfilms for the Directorate of Movements held by Library and Archives Canada and available in a digitized format on the Héritage might have additional information. What I didn't realize is that there are 198 microfilms with many of them having 5000+ images each to go through.

So it was time to rethink my approach of just diving in since I'm not going to wade through all of those millions of images to find the ship and hopefully documents I'm interested in. I need work smarter and not harder.

Since the microfilms came from Library and Archives Canada I decided to see what the Collection Search might give me. But what to search on?

• The obvious is the name of the ship, "Mauretania". 422 results were returned. I want to narrow it down just a bit.
• In the "About" tab for the Directorate of Movements topic page on Héritage it stated that the archival reference is "RG 24 C 24". From my own experience I know that "RG 24" is written as "RG24" on the LAC site and it is the Department of National Defence fonds. Adding "RG24 C 24" (the quotes are needed) to the search reduces it to 96 results. Not bad.
• Thinking a bit more about the "W" prefix for the ship number I realized that it probably indicated a westbound ship. So I added "westbound" (without quotes) and now I have 61 results. 
• Finally I filtered the date by the Year: 1945 since that is when the Mauretania arrived in Halifax. That got it down to 11 results. Now that it manageable!

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Collection Search for 'mauretania "RG24 C 24" westbound" Date: 1945' showing the first of eleven results returned.

Scrolling though the results I came across this entry: "Westbound Personnel - MAURETANIA - Port of Departure - Halifax - Convoy TA-175 [United Kingdom to United States]". However, I wanted Halifax as the port of arrival. In the record information section it stated the date was 1945/01/07 (year/month/day formatted), it is found on microfilm reel number C-5717, and the file number is "HQTS-63-303-779-1". Hmmm, that 779 looks familiar though so I retained some hope that I could find the right microfilm and information about Vera and Norman.

Since microfilm C-5717 is on the Héritage site I decided to see what I could find.

Sigh.

5297 images and none of them are available for text searching. Time to hunker down and start walking through the microfilm images in the hope that this microfilm might have any information about the passage and maybe even find Vera and Norman Burfield listed somewhere.

On image 4 there I came across the Ship Allotment page.

Department of National Defence., "Directorate of Movements," images, Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 29 Jul 2024), Ship Allotment for the Mauretania, M.C. 303-779, Code AT 175; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-5717, image 4. 

It appears that the file starts with the disembarkation in Halifax. It also seems to indicate that there are 630 dependents of Army, Air Force, Navy, and Firefighter personnel on this ship in addition to service members.

I started bouncing through the images in leaps of 20 to see if I might come across lists of passengers. And I got really lucky!

Department of National Defence., "Directorate of Movements," images, Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 29 Jul 2024), List of Canadian Dependents Arriving in Canada ex W-779, List No. 10, for M.D. 3, Sheet No. 2; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-5717, image 200.

On image 200 there was Vera and Norman listed. Nothing new was discovered but the information matches that which was found in the memorandum I found in Arnold's service file. 

That "M.D. 3" on the top right of the page stands for "Military District 3" which, as of 1939, had its headquarters in Kingston, Ontario and included their destination of Peterborough. The various military districts in Canada from 1900 to 1999 can be found listed on the Canadian Soldiers site on their "Domestic Military Organization 1900-1999" page.

I will admit to having a chuckle when I came across pages and pages of letters and notes concerning lost luggage. Even 80 years ago luggage was being misplaced or lost and folks were trying to get compensation for the missing items.

There are pages detailing the need to trains to take the passengers to their destinations including a documents with the timings of the special trains that departed on 7 Jan 1945 starting at image 372. At the bottom of image 375 I found V. Burfield listed and that she had one suitcase and one box to start a new life in Canada as a war widow for her and her son.

I can't imagine coming to Canada from England in the midst of a Nova Scotia winter.

So what happened to Vera and Norman?

She remarried and in 1960 she went back to England with her new family where she passed away many years later.

Where else can you look for records and information? 

You might be able to find your war bride and children in the "UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960" collection on Ancestry and the "Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960" collection on Findmypast. There you might come across a record created by the Canadian Wives' Bureau - Civilian Repatriation Section like what we see here for Jaboca E Sauve departing on the Scythia out of Liverpool on 24 Oct 1946 bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

"Passenger lists leaving UK 1890-1960," database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 29 Jul 2024), Jacoba E Sauve on board the Scythia departing from Liverpool on 24 Oct 1946; citing The National Archives (Kew), BT 27 Series, 129508.

However, not all the ships may be found in this collection. Such is the case for Vera and Norman Burfield.

Remember that the information about the ship movements were often a war secret. Details about the comings and goings of ships would not have been reported in the newspapers of the Allies, especially if the ships were carrying military personnel or supplies. However, the local newspapers where they were going to might have articles about welcoming the war brides to their new home.

Just keep in mind that this sort of research isn't simple or quick to do but it can be rewarding and even informative. In this case, I was lucky enough to have enough details to start looking for records and researching what might be found and it only took me a day or so of research to find what I did.

As with much of our research, all we need is a starting place. Often that starting place is already in the records we have and family stories we've been told.

Ontario Assessment Rolls and the Militia

A little while back, someone posted a query in one of the Facebook groups that deal in Ontario, Canada genealogy. It was a simple question that was interesting to explore:

"I have a tax assessment roll from 1864 and along with it is a militia roll. Can someone explain what that is please."

Westmeath Township, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CV-25P6 : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 23, Militia Roll for Westmeath.

When a question like this is posted, I always like to look at the pages and even years before for clues. 

I just happened to realize that this image was probably from the assessment rolls made available in a digitized format on FamilySearch. Otherwise, I would have prompted the original poster for the source. I want to reminder folks to always state the source of an image in their queries so that others can also find it and other possible related documents.

What we find for the first page for 1864 assessment of Westmeath Township is a list of names, ages, and details about the property.

Westmeath Township, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CV-2R7F : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 1.

That is what I expected to see.

In the 1863 assessment we don't see those Militia columns. So what gives?

Also, what is that "First Class Service", "Second Class Service", and "Reserve"?

Over the past few years I've learned that understanding the law as it has been passed by the various legislatures can often answer many questions when it comes to government created forms.

In this case we need to look at "An Act respecting the Militia", 27 Vict., Cap 2. This act was assented to on October 15, 1863. There we find the definitions for those First Class Service, Second Class Service, and Reserve:

2. The Militia shall consist of all the male inhabitants of the Province of the age of eighteen years or upwards and under sixty, not exempted or disqualified by law.

3. The Militia shall be divided into three classes, to be called respectively first class Service Men, second class Service Men and Reserve Men : the first class Service Men shall be those of eighteen years of age and upwards, but under forty-five years, who are unmarried Men or widowers without children, and the second class Service Men shall be those between the ages last aforesaid who are married Men or widowers with children, — and the Reserve Men shall be those of forty-five years of age and upwards, but under sixty years.

We even find the exemptions in section 4 of the act.

Why, as genealogists and family historians, should we care about these details? Knowing which class a man has been assigned to can provide clues as to their marital status and if they have any children.

But why did we not have these militia columns in previous years?

Well, in section 6 the act states for service enrolment in Upper Canada (section 10 covers Lower Canada):

6. The mode of enrolment of the Militia shall, in Upper Canada, be as follows, that is to say; — the Assessor or Assessors for each Municipality in Upper Canada shall, annually, commencing with the year one thousand eight number and sixty-four, and at the same lime when they are engaged in taking the Assessment of real and personal property in their respective Municipalities, include in their Assessment Roll, the names and residences of all male persons in their respective Municipalities, between the ages of eighteen and sixty years; and they shall prepare three additional columns in such Assessment Roll, which shall be headed respectively "First Class Service Militia Roll,'" "Second Class Service Militia Roll" and "Reserve Militia Roll,"...

So it seems it wasn't until the 1864 assessments that this started.

What we also need to remember is that not every assessor recorded the information the same way on the forms. For the 1864 assessment of the Township of Westmeath, we've already seen that the assessor just wrote a "F", "S", "R", or a place in the columns and added all the men who didn't seem to own land to a separate list. 

For the 1864 assessment of the Township of Enniskillen in Lambton County we see that the names are recorded in the columns and there might be more than one name recorded for a property.

Enniskillen, Lambton, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1852-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-X3CK-3173 : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 31.

So make sure you pay attention to how the assessor actually completed the forms.

Additionally, depending on the assessor, there may be other sorts of information recorded on the forms, especially on the pieces of paper at the end of the assessment rolls. So always check the end of each year's assessment.

Finally, if you want to know which Ontario assessment rolls have been digitized by FamilySearch, there is a simple query you can use to search the FamilySearch Catalog:

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Catalog search page with titles: assessment, subjects: taxation, keywords: canada ontario, Availability: Online.

• Titles: assessment rolls
• Subjects: taxation
• Keywords: canada ontario
• Availability: Online

Just keep in mind that not all places will have the assessment rolls on FamilySearch. Many townships and municipalities still have them only available in paper or microfilm format at a local archive or genealogy or historical society. So if you can't find the township listed on FamilySearch then check with the organizations local to that township.

Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Death Registrations [Update]

Back in February 2023 I wrote "Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Death Registrations". Since then, Ancestry has made available the digitized images for deaths registered in Ontario in 1949 and 1950 in their "Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1949" (as I write this post it still states "1949" in the title) collection as a partner of the Archives of Ontario.

Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1949," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Apr 2024), Harry Dempsey, died 27 Dec 1948, Registration of Death form; citing Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Collection: Registrations of Deaths; Series: Registrations of Deaths (43-500); Reel: RG 80-8; Certificate Number 043124.

As we can see in the above image of the Ontario Registration of Death, Form 6, for Harry Dempsey, all the information about him and his death is found recorded on a single form. The top half of the form has all the genealogical information we crave such as the name, place of death, residence, possible name of the spouse, names of the parents, the name and address of the informant, and possibly where the person was buried. The bottom half of the form has the "Medical Certificate of Death" including when the person died along with the cause(s) of death.

This changed in 1949 when the single form was split into two forms: Form 15, now titled "Statement of Death" and Form 16, "Medical Certificate of Death".

Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1949," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Apr 2024), Catharine Aileen Gibson, died 27 Mar 1950, Statement of Death and Medical Certificate of Death forms; citing Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Registrations of Deaths, 1950; Series: 80-08-0-2918, Certificate Number 012230. 

Since the name is written on both forms you may come across a difference in the spelling like we see for Catherine above.

In my looking at the various forms I also came across a few tidbits and gotchas:

• On Ancestry, the image of the Medical Certificate of Death seems to come after the Statement of Death image on their virtual filmstrip. So, for 1949 onward, make sure you review and even download both of those forms when you are documenting a death of someone who died in Ontario. 

• For those of the First Nations in Ontario you may come across their registration of death recorded on a different set of forms for 1949. Note that these titles are the titles used on the forms from that time period. Form 33 is "Statement of Death of an Indian" and Form 34 is "Medical Certificate of Death of an Indian". The differences seem to be primarily in the details describing where a person died where it asks the name of the "Indian Agency to Which Deceased Belonged." 

• The counties for the 1950 death registrations are a real mess if you are attempting to browse the collection. For example, if you select Lanark County, you don't find any deaths for 1950. There is a "Lanark, Middlesex, and Ontario" grouping for 1950 but they are a hodgepodge of various counties with the first one being for Peel county. I did a search for "Lanark" as an exact place of death for 1950 and found deaths recorded in county groupings such as "Essex, Peterborough, Simcoe, Wentworth, and York" and "York". Until someone at Ancestry can sort out this mess, browsing by counties is a bit of a mess to say the least!

As an aside, those with a sharp eye might also notice that on both the death registrations I use in my examples we find in the "Cause of Death" section a set of numbers added in. For Harry it is "180-0" and for Catherine it is "776X". Those are the codes from the "International List of Causes of Death" and "International Classification of Diseases" which can be found at http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/. Harry's code is a tricky one since in 1948 a new revision came out, ICD Revision 6. If we use that revision it states he died of "Malignant neoplasm of kidney". That doesn't make sense since it is clearly written on the form "Asphyxia due to fire in which he was burned to death." However, if we look at ILCD, Revision 5 we see that code 180 is "Conflagration". That makes much more sense. So be careful when looking up those codes for those years a new revision came out.

Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions - Updated

Back in 2015 I wrote an article titled "Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions" which pointed folks to the instructions that the enumerators were supposed to follow (operative word here is "supposed"). Over the past 9 years we've had two more Canadian censuses released to the public, Library and Archives Canada has undergone a change to their site, and links to some of the instructions have broken. So here is an update to that article.

Seventh census of Canada 1931, instructions to commissioners and enumerators (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1931), cover page.

First of all, before pointing you to the enumerator instructions, I want to remind everyone to make sure you read all the way across the census page and look at each column. There can be important clues held within that we may be ignoring in our haste to move to the next record to locate. Details such as:

• Were the children going to school? 
• Did someone in the household have an infirmity? 
• Was another language spoken in the household? 
• Is there a note indicating the date and household where the enumerator stopped their work for the day?

In our review of the various columns we will come across abbreviations that might have us wondering things like what religion is "E.M.C." and what is that "U.C." recorded for the place of birth. My initial starting place to help me decipher those abbreviations is the "General census guide" page on Library and Archives Canada web site found under their "Census records" topic page. If you haven't done so lately, take the time to check out the various census related pages found under that topic page. There have been many changes and updates in the past few years.

As for the instructions to the enumerators, the "Pre-Confederation, 1825 to 1867", "Dominion of Canada, 1871 to 1931", and "Prairie Provinces Census, 1870-1926" pages on the Library and Archives Canada site all have columns with links pointing to where we can find the instruction. Some of these links will take you to the Act permitting the government to take the census.

In addition to the links provided by Library and Archives Canada, here the links to the same sorts of instruction manuals for the post Confederation enumerations of Canada mostly found on the Internet Archive:

• 1871: Manual containing The Census Act and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the first census of Canada
• 1881: Manual containing The Census Act and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the second census of Canada
• 1891: Manual containing "The Census Act," and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the third census of Canada
• 1901: Instructions to chief officers, commissioners and enumerators
• 1911: Instructions to officers, commissioners and enumerators and Instructions to enumerators in the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory
• 1921: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1931: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1941: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators

There are also the surviving special nominal censuses of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta that were taken between the censuses of the rest of the dominion:

• 1906: Issue of Proclamation for taking the Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta
• 1916: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1926: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1936: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1946: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators 
  

Before Confederation in 1867 there were censuses taken of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West. These censuses can vary greatly in terms of what was asked. For example, the Nova Scotia censuses prior to Confederation only include the name of the head of household

1851: 

• Nova Scotia: An Act for taking the Census of the Province, and obtaining Statistical information
• New Brunswick: An Act for ascertaining the Population of this Province and An Act to amend an Act, intituled An Act for ascertaining the Population of this Province
  

1852 (Canada East/Canada West)

• Gagan, David P., "Enumerators' Instruction for the Census of Canada 1852 and 1861." Histoire sociale/Social History. Vol. VII, no. 14 (Novembre-November 1974)

1861

• Canada East/Canada West: Gagan, David P., "Enumerators' Instruction for the Census of Canada 1852 and 1861." Histoire sociale/Social History. Vol. VII, no. 14 (Novembre-November 1974)

You might have noticed that I also included the instructions for censuses that have not yet been released to the public. The images for those census won't be transferred from Statistics Canada to Library and Archives Canada until 92 years after the census date. However, now we at least know what questions were asked.

As always, make sure you save any of the PDFs to your computer for safe keeping. One never knows when a page or document will disappear from the Internet.

February 30? - Always Find the Source of the Source!

With this being a leap year I thought I'd share one of the more interesting calendar related errors I've come across in my travels. It is for the burial of Michael Stafford, who according to the transcription of the record was buried on 30 Feb 1900.

Screen capture taken 28 Jan 2024 from Ancestry for the "Ontario, Canada, Roman Catholic Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1923" register page with the entry for Michael Stafford buried 30 Feb 1900 in St. Augustine, Ontario, Canada.

As we all know, we can't trust transcriptions so our first thought is that the transcriber of the register made a mistake and no one caught it.

St. Augustine (St. Augustine, Ontario, Canada), Ontario, Canada, Roman Catholic Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1923, "Baptism, Marriage, Burial, Confirmation; Goderich, St Augustine; 1861-1910," Michael Stafford, buried 30 Feb 1900, Interment p 2; digital images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 Jan 2024).

I thought that too. But when I looked at the column formatted register page, on the second to last line in the register the date is clearly written "1900 Feb 30".

Yet this is a column formatted register and it isn't in the usual format we often see in Roman Catholic church registers.Might there be an entry in the parish register itself?

Fortunately for us, that set of books have been digitized and also made available to us on both Ancestry and FamilySearch.

St. Augustine (St. Augustine, Ontario, Canada), "Baptisms 1895-1917, Deaths 1895-199, Marriages 1895-1911, Confirmations 1895-1927," p 14, burial of Michael Stafford, 3 Feb 1900; DGS 5,107,225, item 3, image 148 of 684.

We can clearly read (at least those who have learned to read cursive) that:

"On the third of February nineteen hundred, I the undersigned parish priest buried in the Catholic cemetery of St. Augustine, the body of Michael Stafford aged sixty seven years."

At least the original entry in the church books makes sense. I just wonder what the poor clerk was thinking when they created the entry in that column formatted register. Their brain might just have been tired from copying the information.

Since his death was in the time when civil registrations of deaths in Ontario should have been filed with the authorities we can check the date of his death.

Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1949," database on-line, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Jan 2019), entry for Michael Stafford, died 1 Feb 1900; citing Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Collection: MS935; Reel: 97.

And we can see that on line 4 of the death register that it is recorded that he passed away on "Feby 1 1900" with the date of registration on "Feby 2 1900".

So remember, when things just don't seem to add up, start digging deeper!

This is just another lesson of why we always need to try to follow the records back to the original source document. Sometimes, such as in this case, we can make use of the digitized image. Other times we may need to consult a microfilm or original paper document.