Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Death Registrations

Along with people asking about finding Ontario birth certificates, which I discuss in my post "Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Birth Registration", folks want to locate the death certificates for their long departed kin.

Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 May 2013), entry for Luke McMullen, died 21 Oct 1906; citing Archives of Ontario; Series: MS935; Reel: 126.

Before I begin this guide, I would recommend people read the "Death Registrations" page from the Archives of Ontario along with their "Research Guide 202 - Vital Statistics Records" to gain a basic understanding of what is available and why.

Registration or Certificate?

Keep in mind that usually folks aren't actually looking for the death certificate but a copy of the completed death registration. When my father passed away a few years ago the paperwork that was filled in was titled "Statement of death - Form 15" and also included "Medical Certificate of Death - Form 16" completed my the physician. The "Statement of death" has all the details about someone's death such as when and the place where they died, where they resided, the names of their parents, and the name and address of the informant. The "Medical Certificate of Death" includes all the information about their cause of death. There is also the Ontario Death Certificate but that document usually only has a name, the sex, marital status, date and place of death, age, date of registration, and the registration number. 

As genealogy and family history researchers we generally want the document with as much information as possible. So if requesting a document concerning the death of someone and the records are only available through ServiceOntario via their "How to get a copy of an Ontario death certificate online" page you will want to try to get the "Certified copy of death registration" or even the "Certified copy of death registration with cause of death information". Of course, due to privacy reasons, not everyone can request a certified copy so you may need to have a relative make the application on your behalf.

Years Covered

Death registrations are only publicly available from 1869 to 1951 from the Archives of Ontario. For death registrations registered after 1951, those are still currently held by the Office of the Registrar General of Ontario and can only be requested via Service Ontario. The registrations that are no longer protected by the veil of privacy are transferred from the Office of the Registrar General to the Archives of Ontario on a yearly basis for safekeeping and public access.

Why 1869 and not 1867 when Ontario became a province of the Dominion of Canada? It wasn't until January 23, 1869 when "An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths" was assented to by the Crown. In that act it states that "This Act shall come into force on the first day of July, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine..." That is why you generally may not find any early deaths recorded in the civil death registrations. Although there are a few from before the July 1, 1869 date found in the records they were registered several years later after the death. But those very few entries are the exception.

Where are the Records?

Before diving into where the registrations may be found, it is worth noting that the format of the registration forms changed over the years. One may come across the form with six boxes per page, or with spots for only three registrations in a column format. The more recent registration forms only have a single registration of death on the page. 

However, there was also a registration form that is laid out horizontally. Both FamilySearch and Ancestry will generally only show you the left side of this two page register. So make sure you also get the second part of that register page!

Archives of Ontario

The Archives of Ontario is the repository for those registrations transferred from the Office of the Registrar General. If you are living in or visiting Toronto, Ontario then you can drop by the Archives of Ontario and look at the various microfilms in person. This includes the years 1948 to 1951 since they aren't available online yet. However, according to the Archives of Ontario site, the microfilms holding the 1949-1951 registrations aren't available since they are in the process of being digitized. So always check the Death Registrations page from the Archives of Ontario or email them for up to date information before visiting in person.

It is important to note that the Archives of Ontario does not have the death registrations available on their web site.

FamilySearch

FamilySearch has the digitized microfilms of the Ontario death registrations and indexes from 1869 to 1937 in their "Deaths - registration, 1869-1937 and index, 1869-1937" collection. This collection is freely available for use from the comfort of one's abode. FamilySearch also has their dedicated search page "Canada, Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947" to aid you in your efforts to find a death registration so that you don't have to manually go through the digitized indexes and registrations.

You might notice that FamilySearch has "Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947" included in that search page. Those are the deaths of Ontarians who died overseas due to the Second World War. The images for those registration are found on FamilySearch in their "Ontario statistics overseas--deaths, 1939-1947" collection. Quite often the completed civil death registration is a bit sparse on the details but it is a great clue that you should probably look up that person's Second World War service file in the Library and Archives Canada "Second World War Service Files – War Dead, 1939 to 1947" database.

FamilySearch, in addition to their indexes created by way of their transcriptions of the registrations, also has the images of the government created Vital Statistics Index (VSI) for deaths on their site. In the days before the Internet and the mass indexing projects, the VSI is what folks would consult first on microfilm before looking on the applicable microfilm that held the registration of death form for the person they were seeking.

Ontario Registrar General,  Deaths - registration, 1869-1937 and index, 1869-1937, (Archives of Ontario, Toronto), 1913: extract from page for Carrick, Michael to Carscallen, Oswald Gurney; FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org: 27 Feb 2023), DGS 8105303, image 16.

Yet even now these Vital Statistics Indexes are still useful to us. One reason is that the indexes are alphabetical by surname. One can, with practice, quickly glance through the years for possible names that have been "interestingly" read and transcribed from the original documents.

You might notice that in the "CONT." column in the example above for the VSI there are two codes: 91 and 21. The 91 indicates that it is a death (9) and is the original entry (1) where as the 21 indicates that it is a stillbirth (2) original entry (1).

What about finding online those deaths after 1937? For those we need to turn to Ancestry.

Ancestry

On Ancestry we have their "Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1948" collection which has the death registrations from 1869 up to 1948. That collection includes the deaths related to those Ontarians who died overseas due to the Second World War.

Other sites

Some might wonder where is Findmypast or MyHeritage in the list of genealogy sites to use to find Ontario civil death registrations? I wondered the same as I was writing this post. It seems that both Findmypast and MyHeritage don't have the registrations for Ontario. Findmypast has indexes for British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan though.

One of the other sites I will sometimes use is The Ontario Vital Statistics Project. I like this site for a few reasons. The first is that the records are transcribed by folks not associated with FamilySearch or Ancestry. So they might see the written words differently. Also, the transcriptions are alphabetical in columns and I can quickly glance through a page.

Partial screen capture from The Ontario Vital Statistics Project for Ontario Death Registrations "McL-McY" Surnames page.

Still Can't Find it!

It could be as simple as the death may not have been registered with the civil authorities. For a number of years, even decades, the civil registrations of births, marriage, and deaths in the Province of Ontario fell far short of 100% coverage. In one case I was looking at the mother's death wasn't registered but her young son's death the following year was. According to the law no one should have been buried without a death registration filed but often it slipped through the cracks.

So where else can one look for clues concerning a death if it can't be found in the civil registrations? Some possible sources include:

• Newspapers: I couldn't find a civil death registration for William Henry Chipman who died in Ottawa, Ontario on 10 Apr 1870. However, I did find his death in various newspapers since he was a member of the first parliament of Canada.
  
• Parish registers: It is important to remember that parish registers generally only record the burial of someone. If we are fortunate we will find that the parish priest or clerk will have also recorded the date of death in the register.
  
• Cemetery registers: Much like parish registers, cemetery registers are there to record the date of the burial. But since a person is not supposed to be buried before they are dead it can set an upper limit for the date when a person passed away.
  
• Monumental inscriptions on marker and memorial stones: However, don't necessarily trust the year or exact date found on a marker or memorial stone in a cemetery or graveyard. Sometimes the stone is a replacement and the date may be based on the memory of whomever is paying for the new marker. See my post from 2013 "Zombie in the census?" for an example of this issue. Also, just because a person has a marker in one place doesn't mean that they died in that community or are even buried in that cemetery.
  
• Schedule 2, "Nominal return of the deaths", from the 1871 Census of Canada: This schedule was supposed to record all deaths that took place in the year prior to the start of the 1871 Census of Canada which was 2 Apr 1871. Just like any other record made weeks or months after the event, the date in this schedule may be based on someone's faulty memory.
  
• City Directories: Sometime a clue can be found for the death of the male head of household. The directory entry may switch from his name to that of his wife and she will have "widow of..." after her name.

Even if the death has been registered and one has a copy of the registration, see if you can find other records about the death. I have run into a case where the civil registration of death has the wrong date recorded. Both the grave marker and the newspaper have a date several weeks before the "official" date in the civil registration. Since a newspaper doesn't often report on a death before it has occurred, in this case I actually trust the newspaper more than the government record.

Hopefully some of the guidance in this post will help you find those sometimes elusive civil death registrations in Ontario.

A Reel Challenge for the 1871 Census of Canada

Recently in a Facebook group the following question was posted:

"Has anyone had any luck accessing Schedule 4 (Agricultural returns) of the 1871 Canada Census for Vespa township? Ancestry has schedules 1 - 3 and then the ‘roll’ stops and I can’t find it on Library and Archives Canada’s website."

When I looked at the image on the Library and Archives Canada site for the last page on their virtual microfilm reel I could see it ended at page 18 for Schedule 3.

1871 census of Canada, Ontario, district 42, sub-district D, Schedule 3, p. 18; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1871&op=img&id=4396340_00685 : accessed 20 Feb 2023); Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-9962.

In the past I too have run into this issue but I never really thought about documenting how I solved this little conundrum in my own research. Time to rectify that.

As an aside, some of you may be wondering why they were looking for Schedule 4 in the 1871 Census of Canada?  That schedule, the "Return of Cultivated Land, of Field Products and of Plants and Fruits", is invaluable for those seeking to learn where their rural ancestors resided during the 1871 Census of Canada since it can provide the concession and lot number where a family lived or at least farmed. However, the information isn't recorded by name on the pages of Schedule 4 but by the page and line number in Schedule 1, "Nominal Return of the Living" of the head of household. So there is no searchable name index for schedule 4. I write how to use that census in my post "Ontario Concession and Lot in the 1871 Census of Canada" which is part of my ongoing Ontario land records On the Ground series.

Here is the process I undertook to find the next reel. 

Be warned, there is a bit of playing around with URLs, that sometime long address you see in your browser of a  web page. You won't break anything if you make an error though.

Since we are looking at the 1871 Census of Canada we need to visit the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) page on that subject "Census of Canada, 1871". At this moment the page for this census is from the legacy LAC site. Sometime in the future Library and Archives Canada will move to the new site layout for the census pages. Hopefully we will still be able to do the same sort of work when they do.

Next we need to visit the "Districts and Sub-districts: Census of Canada, 1871" page. Why that page? That page not only tells us the various districts and sub-districts for that census and what may be missing but also the microfilm numbers where each sub-district may be found.

Although the person wrote "Vespa" as the township name, that is a typo. They actually meant "Vespra" which is found in district number 42, Simcoe North. In the list of districts and sub-districts for Ontario we can see that the Vespra sub-district is found on microfilms C-9962 and C-9963. The Medonte sub-district could have the same challenges since it too spans two microfilms.

Screen capture of the list of sub-districts for "District 42 - Simcoe North" from the Library and Archives Canada "Districts and Sub-districts: Census of Canada, 1871, Ontario" page.

In a perfect world the URLs for the digitized images of the microfilms would be sequential. Alas, we live in an imperfect world so it is a bit more of a challenge.

We do see that there are a number of sub-districts on microfilm C-9963, the reel that continues from C-9962 for Vespra. We find Barrie, Flos, Tiny, Tay, and Medonte on reel C-9963.

We next head to the "Search: Census of Canada, 1871" page on the Library and Archives Canada site. We also need to click on the "Hide/Show Advanced Search Options" link to show the advanced search options since we are going to search by a sub-district name.

Screen capture of the "Search: Census of Canada, 1871" page from Library and Archives Canada with District Number "42", Sub-District Name "Barrie", and Page Number "1" filled in.

Above we see that I've already selected the Province "Ontario" along with filling in the district number, 42, the sub-district, Barrie, and put in the page number 1. Why Barrie? In theory it should be the next sub-district after Vespra on the microfilm.

Screen capture of the search results from the Census of Canada, 1871 for "Ontario", District Number "42", Sub-District Name "Barrie", and Page Number "1" with JPG link highlighted.

It doesn't matter the names returned. What we want to do is to click on the JPG line (circled in red in the image) to have the image of the page appear in our browser.

Partial screen capture of the browser view for Census of Canada, 1871 for Ontario, District Number 42, Sub-District Name Barrie, and Page Number 1.

Again, it isn't really important what page we are looking at. What is important is the URL or address of that image from Library and Archives Canada. In this case the address of the page is:

https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1871&op=img&id=4396754_00133

What we are going to be doing is playing with the "id" part of the URL and here it is 4396754_00133. It is made up of two parts, what I call the digitized microfilm number: 4396754, and the image number: 00133.

When we looked at the last page of schedule 3 for the Vespra sub-district the id part of the URL was 4396340_00685. That digitized microfilm number is 4396340 and adding 1 to that number definitely doesn't get us to 4396754. That's why we have to do this exercise.

Now we can start playing with the image number of the address.

The first thing we want to do is go to the first image on that digitized microfilm so we change 00133 to 00001 to create the URL https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1871&op=img&id=4396754_00001.

Now we just  have to keep incrementing that number until we get to a census page. Just a word of warning, sometimes the LAC site can be a bit slow, so be patient with it.

On image 5 (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1871&op=img&id=4396754_00005) of that microfilm it shows pages 78 and 79 for the Sub-District of Flos. What the heck? That doesn't make sense! A few more pages on (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1871&op=img&id=4396754_00009) we are now seeing pages 26 and 27 for Division 1 of the Tiny Sub-District. Perplexed? So was I!

However, a few more pages later we get to a "START" slide. We are on digitized image 11 and are just starting?

Finally on image 18 we get to the first page of Schedule 4 for the Province of Ontario, District of Simcoe North (42), Sub-District of Vespra (D).

1871 census of Canada, Ontario, district 42, sub-district D, Schedule 4, p. 1; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1871&op=img&id=4396754_00018 : accessed 20 Feb 2023); Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-9963.

Those extraneous images we came across? I've found that sometimes the first few digitized images on the microfilm reels from Library and Archives Canada for the censuses may not be the actual start of the reel. I always look for the "START" slide.

See, it wasn't too hard to do this little exercise.

Ancestry

You can find the same image on Ancestry once you get the digitized microfilm number and image number from LAC. 

But Ancestry has its own quirks. When there are strange breaks like this in the digitized microfilm reels sometimes the folks at Ancestry who created their "filmstrips" get confused. In this case I really don't blame them.

The first thing we need to have is the starting part of the URL from Ancestry for where they hold the images of their "1871 Census of Canada" collection. The base URL address is:

https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1578/images/

Then we need to add on the id part from the Library and Archives Canada URL of where LAC keeps their images. In this case it is 4396754_00018.

Putting them together gives us: https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1578/images/4396754_00018.

If you have an Ancestry subscription that include Canadian records you will find that Ancestry displays the same image we found at Library and Archives Canada.

Screen capture from Ancestry of the 1871 Census of Canada, Ontario, district 42, sub-district D, Schedule 4, p. 1 with URL and Filmstrip visible.

You might notice that the top of the page from Ancestry for this image states "Ontario > Simcoe North > Flos". Yet the image itself clearly states Vespra for the sub-district. They too were initially misled by those first few images on the digitized microfilm reel and went with the name of the sub-district on those first images.

FamilySearch

It is much easier to navigate through the digitized microfilm reels for the 1871 Census of Canada in the FamilySearch "Census of Canada, 1871 (schedules no. 1-9)" collection. However, to do that you need to visit a FamilySearch Center or Affiliate to view these digitized microfilms since they aren't viewable from home (the key above the camera icon).

Screen capture from FamilySearch for the "Census of Canada, 1871 (schedules no. 1-9)" collection with microfilms C9961 to C9965 visible in the list of microfilms.

As you can see, NAC no. C9962 ends with "d (Vespra, to schedule 3)" [NAC here stands for National Archives of Canada]. Yet NAC no. C9963 says it starts with " e-1 to e-2 (Barrie - town)". It would seem that the index entry for C9963 isn't quite accurate. I've run into that issue in other catalogue lists on FamilySearch, especially for the Ontario Township Papers collection.

Old LAC Site via the Wayback Machine

For those of us who make use of the Library and Archives Canada web site in our daily genealogy and family history research the change to the new look and feel has been a constant challenge. Key pages which we are very familiar with have undergone drastic changes with potentially useful material omitted or they have just vanished into the aether. So what can we do?

This is when we can turn to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Before we head into the Wayback Machine's copy of the Library and Archives Canada web site there are a few things to note:

• What the Wayback Machine has available is a snapshot taken on various days. For the LAC site I am generally wanting to be looking at the archived copies of the pages made before the end of August 2022 when LAC flipped to the new look and feel of the site.
  
• The Wayback Machine is not speedy (neither is the LAC site at times!). Remember, this is an archive and is not meant to be used like you are browsing the Internet.
• Searching databases won't work. The Wayback Machine can't copy the database back-end systems.
• Links found on the Wayback Machine's archive that point to other sites will attempt to go Wayback Machine's copy of that other site. We probably don't want that. I'll address that later in this post.
  
• We won't see any new material added to the LAC site.
  

When I'm using the Wayback Machine's copy of the Library and Archives Canada site I start with the 15 Jul 2022 copy of the LAC home page: https://web.archive.org/web/20220715023037/https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Pages/home.aspx. Why that date? I just have it bookmarked and it works for my purposes.

Screen Capture from 25 Nov 2022 of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine capture of the Library and Archives Canada home page which was made on 15 Jul 2022.

I can now navigate on that page. Usually I will use the "Discover the Collection" or possibly the "Search the Collection" drop down menus to select what I want to see. Just remember that any page where you can do a search will appear but the searching part won't work.

 

What if you have a URL in your bookmarks that is no longer working on the new LAC site?

My first place to check is the "A to Z tools and guides" page on the new Library and Archives Canada site and filter by the keywords. If the page appears in the list then check it out. It might have all that you are looking for.

But what if the page has been gutted of all the really useful information or it is not found?

Then go back to the Internet Archive home page and at the top where it has the Wayback Machine search box copy and paste your URL you had bookmarked. By the way, this works for many of the "lost" pages and web sites on the Internet, not just for the Library and Archives Canada site.

Screen capture taken 25 Nov 2022 of the Internet Archive home page.

For example, I've not been able to find Merchant Marine page on the new Library and Archives Canada site. For those researching anyone who served in the Merchant Marine (peacetime) or Merchant Navy (wartime), this page was a great place to find out where many of the records are held (hint, it isn't LAC) and also what collections LAC has that may help you out in your research. The page used to be at "https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/genealogy/topics/employment/Pages/merchant-marine.aspx" but if I go to that URL it just brings me to the new Library and Archives Canada site. However, if I copy and paste that address into the Wayback Machine it displays:

Screen capture taken 25 Nov 2022 of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine's archive dates of the Library and Archives Canada Merchant Marine page.

A total of 61 snapshots of that page have been archived by the Wayback machine. If I hover my mouse pointer over the highlighted dates in the calendars I can then select the time of the capture of the page in question. For the LAC site I will generally want to see pages from before 30 Aug 2022. There are no updates to the page in August so I might pick 15 Jul 2022 at 10:32:18 or 7 Jul 2022 taken at 18:49:22.

And here is the page from the snapshot taken by the Wayback Machine:

Screen capture taken 25 Nov 2022 of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine snapshot at https://web.archive.org/web/20220707184922/https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/genealogy/topics/employment/Pages/merchant-marine.aspx of the old Library and Archives Canada Merchant Marine page (https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/genealogy/topics/employment/Pages/merchant-marine.aspx).

One of the links on that page points to how to submit an ATIP request to Veterans Affairs Canada in order to request wartime records of those who served in the Merchant Navy. The problem is that the link doesn't actually take you to Veterans Affairs Canada but to the Wayback Machine copy. We don't want that.

Screen capture taken 25 Nov 2022 of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine snapshot of the old Library and Archives Canada Merchant Marine page concerning how to request Wartime records.

This is where we have to do some work. If we hover the mouse pointer on the URL and right click (on a Windows system...a Mac or mobile device will be done differently) you can copy the link which appears to be:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220707184922/https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/veterans-rights/access-to-information-privacy/how-to-submit-atip-request

Notice that the URL is made up of two parts:

1. The Wayback Machine details that include the date and time stamp: https://web.archive.org/web/20220707184922

2. The URL of the web page we are looking at: https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/veterans-rights/access-to-information-privacy/how-to-submit-atip-request

We just want to take that second part of the address, https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/veterans-rights/access-to-information-privacy/how-to-submit-atip-request, and copy that into our web browser. With any luck we will be able to get to the right page on that site.

The new Library and Archives Canada web site is still undergoing updates through a phased approach. You will get frustrated, annoyed, a really ticked off when you can't find what you know used to be there. Hopefully this post will ease some of the frustrations you are feeling.

Also, if it is an important page that really should be there, voice your concerns by going to the "Ask reference a question" page, select "Reference" as the "Request Type", and let them know (politely of course) how useful the page was and ask if it will be made available on the site sometime in the near future. 

Remember, the Wayback Machine works for a number of other web pages found in the Internet that may have disappeared into the aether. If you do find the Wayback Machine, or the Internet Archive in general, to be a useful tool, please consider making a small donation to help them pay for their back-end resources.

Library and Archives Canada New Beta Census Search

Library and Archives Canada did warn us that they were transitioning to the new "cleaner" (my term) design for their pages in a phased approached. Thanks to Gail Dever and her post "New Census Search tool designed to make it easier to find family roots in Canada" at Genealogy à la carte for the heads up I found myself spending my Sunday morning and part of the afternoon playing on the new search page and writing this up.

For now the old LAC census search page still exists at "Censuses" but it will be going away sometime in the future. In preparation for the day when that happens and just based on what Library and Archives Canada did to other topic/landing pages, I'd recommend saving or printing, maybe as a PDF if your computer supports it, those various census topic pages to your computer for safekeeping...just in case. Those current pages do have a wealth of really information on them and we don't know if they will be carried forward to the new site.

On to the new LAC census search page...

Screen capture of the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) screen taken on 20 Nov 2022.

I'll be using Luke McMullen, my 3rd great-grandfather, in the examples in this blog. Why? Because it is my blog and also his name presents some interesting challenges at times.

The expanded search box screen captures which I took on 20 Nov 2022 all appear on the same screen in your browser. I've just presented them individually for clarity.

Here are my personal observations and recommendations on how to use the current search pages to do general census searches.

My first recommendation for anyone who has done census searches using any of the genealogy sites is to click on the "Advanced search" link at the top of the search form. What that does is open up the "Census year(s)", "Who", "When", "Where" and "Location in the archive" search forms so that you can see all the possible things you can search on. Yes, you could click the "More" button in the "Who", "Where", and "Location in the archive" but why click several buttons when one button will do the work for you.

Census year(s)

Screen capture of the expanded "Census year(s)" search box on the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) screen taken on 20 Nov 2022.

In the census years I would suggest to select only the years the person was alive...assuming you know that little bit of information. Why? So that you don't get overwhelmed or confused with extra results that don't apply to your person. Since Luke McMullen was born about 1818 and died in 1906 I would probably uncheck the boxes for 1911 and 1921 under "Dominion of Canada" and 1916 and 1926 under "All Prairies". 

Who

Screen capture of the expanded "Who" search box on the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) screen taken on 20 Nov 2022.

For the "Who" I'd recommend just filling in the "First name" and "Last name". The reason for not filling in the other boxes, except possibly "Gender", is that we probably don't know those details, what was transcribed, and, just as importantly, we don't know what was told to the enumerator. For example, in the various records for Luke McMullen I've found that his birth year was stated or calculated as 1818 or 1819 or 1820 or 1826. The form doesn't currently support age ranges so if you put in a specific age then you may miss many of the census search returns. As for 'Religion", I don't know about your family, but my kin who followed the various Protestant branches seemed to switch churches in almost every census enumeration.

When it comes to names and what the enumerator wrote or scribbled and playing the "guess what the blind transcriber saw" game is no longer fun, then try making use of the wildcard '*' character. If I search for "Luke McMullen" I get back five results: 1851, 1861 (agricultural), 1871 (Ontario), 1891, and 1901. Yet the 1871 Census of Canada result doesn't have an image attached since that transcription index entry was created by the Ontario Genealogical Society in the 1980s of just the heads of household. But what about the 1871 Census of Canada for Luke McMullen with an image?

Well this is where the wildcard comes in handy.

If I do a search for "Luke McMull*n" then the 1871 Census of Canada with an image appears in the list. The gotcha there here is that his last name was transcribed as "Luke McMullin"

Also, for anyone with a surname that starts with "Mc" or "Mac" I'd recommend replacing the "c" or "ac" with the wildcard. So when searching for McMullen I might start with "M*Mullen"

But I'm still missing the 1861 population schedule and the 1881 census so I tried searching using "Luke *Mull*n". Now I got back 15 results. Hmmm, just a few more than I expected! Most of them are of a Luke Mullin in Quebec. Yet if I filter on just the Province for "Ontario" I get only four results and still no 1881 and nothing before 1861. To find Luke in the Census of 1881 I had to search for "luke *mull*" and there I found his name transcribed as "Luke Mullem". By the way, I can't fault the transcriber in this case. It really does look like it is written by the enumerator as "Luke Mullem". However, there is another gotcha when it comes to filtering on the provinces but this is for when I discuss the "Where" search box below.

As for that Census of 1861 Canada it appears that the enumerator wrote on the population schedule Luke's name as "Luk McMullen". 

When

Screen capture of the expanded "When" search box on the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) screen taken on 20 Nov 2022.

I'd also leave the dates in the "When" blank just for the same reason I recommended leaving the "Age" blank in the "Who" search box. Our ancestors just weren't too consistent when it come to stating their age and it didn't help that on at least one census it asks "Age next birthday".

Where

Screen capture of the expanded "Where" search box on the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) screen taken on 20 Nov 2022.

The "Where" box is handy if you know in which province your kin resided. Yet if they moved to another province, quite often the phase "Go west, young man" comes to mind, you may miss later census entries. Where the "Where" search box does come in handy is if you are looking for someone in a specific place at a specific time. One does need to keep in mind that district names and sub-district names, along with their numbers, may have changed between the taking of the censuses. 

One thing that is missing on in the "Where" search box is the being able to search by page number. Why would that be useful? What if you were presented with a source citation along the lines of:

1901 census of Canada, Ontario, district 81, sub-district f-2, p. 2, dwelling 17, family 17, Luke McMullen; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 May 2013); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm T-6478.

Yes, I know that this is not a perfect citation but for my purposes it is "good enough". If we don't have Ancestry there is still enough information to find the page on the Library and Archives Canada site even without searching using the name...except the new search form, unlike the old form, doesn't let me narrow down the results to just a single page. The page number is captured in the "Record Information - Details" screen when I look at the search results so this should be a simple thing to add to the form by the developers. 

There is a gotcha, the one I alluded to in the "Who" section, when searching for folks in the censuses before 1871 who lived in Ontario. They weren't living in a place named Ontario yet. They were living on Upper Canada or Canada West according to the government. The same challenge for those living in the province presently called Quebec. Quebec was known as Lower Canada and then later Canada East. You may also have same challenge with the Prairie provinces since depending on the time they may have been enumerated under "The Territories" .

Location in the archive

Screen capture of the expanded "Location in the archive" search box on the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) screen taken on 20 Nov 2022.

Unless you are doing an arcane search leave the various fields in the "Location in the archive" blank. However, there have been times when I've been helping out someone in their research using Ancestry where I want to point them to the image on the Library and Archives Canada site and I do have the image number that I've found embedded in the Ancestry URL. With this extra search field it will make it very easy for me to find the image. As I said...arcane!

Getting back to Luke McMullen, finding him in the new LAC Census search page I would have to look for "Luk* *mull*" and filter just on the years he was alive. There will be a number of entries that don't apply to him. I can't filter on "Ontario" for the Province since then I'd miss the censuses of 1851 and 1861 for those censuses are recorded as being in "Canada West".

Collection Search Results

Once you get to the search results screen there is one thing to note: don't use the back button to get back to adjust or modify your various filters. 

Screen capture of the search results page in Collection Search for the new Library and Archives Canada Census Search (beta) system taken on 20 Nov 2022.

Instead, at the top of the search results page click on the "Modify search" to open up the search boxes just like we have seen on the initial search page. Make your changes here and click on the Search button to update the results.

Now not all is bad. The new image display page coming from the Collection Search page allows you to zoom in and out on the image by increments. So that is a nice feature. Plus being able to search from one screen, once some issues are hopefully dealt with, is a good thing.

Wrapping Up

Since this is a beta version of the page I figure now is the time to give my constructive feedback to Library and Archives Canada in the hopes of influencing the page and how it works. I've signed up for a 10 minute online feedback session and I've sent a laundry list of things to LAC via their "email us your comments" link at the top of the search page.

• Add search by page number in the "Where" search box. It is there in the old search system so hopefully that is an oversight.
• Add the ability to search by multiple Provinces in the "Where" search box. As I've noticed with Luke McMullen, LAC treats Ontario, Canada West, and Upper Canada as different places. Being able to select all three in my search would be a nice feature.
• One search feature that would be possibly the hardest to implement is to search for a range of numbers. Most of our kin had a range of ages or years recorded in the censuses. Being able to search for something like "From year: 1818" "To year: 1826" for a year would help us to get rid of the extra folks in the returned results. Same with searching by age.

 

Finally, and this is the important thing to remember. This is a beta version of the pages and things will change, hopefully for the better. So when you get frustrated, not if but when, step away from the computer or switch back to the familiar old Census search pages (at least for now).

UPDATE - 22 Nov 2022

It really can pay off to provide constructive feedback for I received a reply to my email from someone in the Digital Access, Public Services Branch at Library and Archives Canada. There are a few things I will share:

• They are in the process of introducing search ranges for"Age", 'Year of birth", and "Year of immigration". So keep an eye open for it in the upcoming weeks.
• Being able to select multiple "Provinces" is already an improvement that was requested by the Library and Archives Canada genealogy staff. So it is one of the features they will be working on.

For my issue with the page number, they pointed out that is actually under the "Location in the archive" search box but only if a specific year is selected. I've advocated that it should be in the "Where" section since the page number, line number, and family number is more associated with the district, sub-district, and division number when created a citation.

Webinar - Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War

I will be speaking at the Lambton County Branch of Ontario Ancestors meeting on Thursday, November 10, 2022 starting at 7 pm ET on "Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War". In this presentation I will be looking at the various online resources that are available to us as we seek to learn more about and honour those men and women who served Canada during the First World War.

Registration to attend via Zoom can be found at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtdOyoqTksGNVrfjOh0Sf8fiu4QJIVB_O_.

I hope to see you there!

First and Second World War Research Resource Pages Updated

 

For those who are researching their kin who served Canada during the First or Second World Wars, I've updated my resources pages with corrected links and new sites that may just help you in your goal to honour those who have served.

First World War: Researching a Soldier of the Great War

Second World War: Researching the Canadian Fallen

Archives of Ontario AIMS

With relatively little fanfare on September 29, 2022 the Archives of Ontario retired their older Archives Descriptive Database search site, formerly found at http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll?get&file=[ARCHON]search.htm, with a new tool. The Archives and Information Management Systems (AIMS) searches the following existing databases:

• Archives Descriptive Database
• BIBLiON Library Catalogue
• Government of Ontario Art Collection Database
• Visual Database

One side effect of how the Archives of Ontario retired the older search site is that if you have any links using the ao.minisisinc.com address...well...they don't work at all and just return a "Server Not Found" error. Sort of frustrating, especially for those of us still dealing with the changes to the Library and Archives Canada site changes and this becomes one more annoyance for us.

Screen capture from 14 Oct 2022 of the Archives and Information Management System (AIMS) home page for the Archives of Ontario collections.

At first glance, for most of us who used the older search site, there really isn't much of a difference for doing basic searches. Except you may get back results that you hadn't seen before since AIMS searches not just one but four databases. This might be a good thing.

However, don't dive into AIMS yet with your favourite searches. Instead, take the time to read the Frequently Asked Questions. You might notice that there is no link to the FAQ on the AIMS home page. That's because I found it by following the "New Online Tool Allows for Easier Searching" announcement on the Archives of Ontario home page.

Both on the AIMS home page and in the FAQ they make mention of having an account. Now you don't need an account to do any searches but if you are wanting to request material in person or online then you will need to have a "Public Secure" account with the Government of Ontario. It isn't that hard to set up the account and after a few minutes I had mine created. Even if you aren't planning on requesting material having this account might be a nice thing to have since AIMS allows you to save bookmarks for the items you find in their databases. However, my AIMS bookmarks I added the day before disappeared so I'm not sure what is going on. Hopefully they will fix this issue since that might be a handy feature for us.

Now if you have saved bookmarks you will probably want to access them again sometime in the future. That activity had me stymied for a while until I found them buried in "Client Profile" on the right side of the AIMS home page once you are signed in.

OK, back to searching.

But first click on that "How to search our database" button before doing your first search to learn about any search tips for AIMS. 

There are two important tips concerning searching by keywords.

• Certain common words will be ignored in your search such as: the, a, an, in, of, and, these.
• The '*' can be used to truncate your search. According to the search tips the '*' isn't really a wild card so you can't put it in the middle of a word like "pate*t" but instead it seems to have to be at the end of the word like "paten*". Why use it? Maybe you want to find all the items in the database that start with "farm" such as "farm", "farming", "farmed", and "farms". The keyword you would use would be "farm*"
  

I have come across a gotcha when doing searches and that is when you get your results and then hit the back button in your browser to make a change to your search. 

Did I forget to mention that you can't edit the keywords for your search from the search results screen?

The "Search" button is greyed out and you can't press it and the "Searching records..." wheel is spinning but nothing is actually happening. To get out of that annoying state just refresh the browser page with "F5" (at least on a desktop Windows browser...mobile and MacOS users may have to do something different to refresh the page). The "Search" button will work again.

If you want to do an advanced search by just clicking the "Advanced Search" button then you might be a bit confused and disappointed since you will only be able to do an advanced search on titles.

Ya, that had me annoyed too.

Instead, first select the database you want to search on the left side of the screen:

• Art Collection (only)
• Archives Repository (only)
• Library Holdings (only)

Then click on the Advanced Search button to get a list of the fields you can search. The fields listed will be different depending on the collection/repository/holding selected.

Screen capture of the AIMS Archives Repository (only) Advance Search page retrieved on 14 Oct 2022.

The stacked three lines (AKA Hamburger button) to the right of each field brings up a quasi-browsable/searchable list of known items for the field. Or you can type in the information you are looking for in the correct spot in the advanced search screen field list. For example if I want to everything related to land patents in the RG 53 collection I could type "RG 53-*" (without the quotes) in the reference search field. I might event add the word "land" to search on the Scope to filter out items such as "Commissions for License Inspectors" in RG 53-31. 

However, if I do a search with the Reference Code of "RG 1-100-*" and the Title of "Drummond" I get only one result. That applies even if I add the '*' to the end of Drummond. Yet when I search for a "Higher Reference Code" of "RG 1-100" and the Title "Drummond" (note: no '*') I get 5 results back all with a reference code starting with "RG 1-100-0-0-". Confused? So am I.

So if you don't results that you expect when doing an advanced search, try playing around with the search terms and the fields being searched. Each time I go into the Advance Search screen I discover a different or new way to find and filter for the information I'm looking for.

 

You might have noticed two additional collections on the left side of the screen: "Immigration Records" and "Second Heir and Devisee Commission Case Files"

The Immigration Records page brings up the search page for the Toronto Emigrant Office Assisted Immigration Registers Database. This is a database index to the four volumes of assisted immigration registers created by the Toronto Emigrant Office between 1865 and 1883 (series RG 11-3). 

The Second Heir and Devisee Commission Case Files Database is a searchable index to the 5184 case files that document claims made to the Second Heir and Devisee Commission.

 

Keep in mind that this is a new system and there will be glitches, issues, and probably changes over the coming months. I've already experienced some interesting glitches such as where the search results didn't appear even though AIMS said there were 133 items. I had to try the search a few times and then all was good...for now. A few days ago the system was really slow (minutes slow!) to even bring up the home page one evening. There also appears to be a timeout where the system has automatically logged me out from my account out after a bit of time.

So try to be patient as the Archives of Ontario transitions to AIMS. But if you do find an issue, bring it to their attention!

Have fun searching the new Archives and Information Management System (AIMS)!