Finding Loyalists Claims Online

Back in 2014 I wrote a post about Online Resources for Your Loyalist Research Project and in several of my other posts I've touched upon using land records to help you in your genealogy research.

Recently I came across this query in the United Empire Loyalists Association  (UELAC) Facebook  group and decided to see what I could find using just online resources since, with COVID-19 restrictions, brick and mortar archives and libraries are pretty much off limits. I'm also going to look at other sources of information to see what also can be uncovered.

My Orange County, New York ancestor John Darrington settled in May 1783 in King's County, New Brunswick. Does anyone know where I would find details of his 1787 claim to the British Government for his losses as a loyalist? There is a very helpful paragraph in Dubreau's New Brunswick Loyalists - a Bicentennial Tribute (1983), but Dubreau didn't cite any sources beyond a bibliography. I've purchased a copy of the most likely item in that bibliography but it came up short. Any recommendations appreciated.

I took a look at Sharon M. Dubeau's book "New Brunswick Loyalists - a bicentennial tribute" published in 1983 by Generation Press to make sure no key details were missing from the query. The paragraph on John Darington does include the statement that he settled along the Kennebecasis River in Kings County along with the death of his wife, Joanna, in Portland (Saint John) in 1840 at the age of 95 years. What is interesting to me is that the New Brunswick Genealogical Society's "First Families" sources Dubeau's book for their entry but spells the name "Darlington".

For the various claims made by Loyalists we have to look at the Audit Office AO 12: American Loyalist Claims, Series I and AO 13: American Loyalist Claims, Series II to see if we can locate the documents. These are held by The National Archives in England but fortunately Library and Archives Canada have a microfilm copy of the files. Even better, LAC has had the microfilms digitized as part of the Héritage Project. The challenge for us is that AO 12 and AO 13 on the Héritage Project site aren't really indexed for searching. We can manually review the various pages in the microfilms but there is an easier way.

On Ancestry there is the "UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835" collection which has name indexed both AO 12 and AO 13.

A search of that collection returns three possible records:

Screen capture of Ancestry search results from the UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835 collection for John Darrington.

Yes, there is a name difference but that is often not unexpected.

There is also another challenge we face with the collection on Ancestry. When I viewed the first record the source citation stated:

The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; American Loyalist Claims, Series I; Class: AO 13; Piece: 025

However, on the side of the image it states A.O.12 /25

Screen capture from Ancestry image from UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835 collection for John Derington, Account of Losses.

I've actually verified that it is from AO 12/25 by checking the same entry from the Héritage Project. Please bear with me since, as I mentioned, the microfilms that have been digitized by the Héritage Project are indexed by name and I'm going to use their images..

First I had to find volume 25 in AO 12. After a bit of jumping around in the images I found that it started on image 404 on microfilm C-12904. The index started on the next image and that is where I found John Derington listed.

Extract of index from AO 12/25 on Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 405.

The first number is the page for the Memorial with the next number being the page for the evidence.

Here is his claim for £209 and 12 shillings.

Claim of John Derington, p 389, AO 12/25 Claims, American Loyalists - Series I, Evidence, New York, 1786-1787; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 757.

The next page was the sworn statement by John Derington stating his service to the crown.

Evidence for John Derington claim, p 389, AO 12/25 Claims, American Loyalists - Series I, Evidence, New York, 1786-1787; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 758.

Here we learn that according to John, he joined the British soon after Fort Washington was taken. That event took place November 16, 1776 at what is now Manhattan, New York City. So we know approximately when he joined the forces on the side of King George III. He served in the 55th Regiment of Foot as a Private.

There is also the Minutes that Ancestry returned when we searched for John Darrington in the collection. Again, Ancestry's source citation references to AO 13/98 but, like the Account of Losses and Evidence, it is actually found in AO 12/98.

Minutes pertaining to John Derington Memorial, p 302, AO 12/98 Claims, American Loyalists - Series I, Various, Minute Book, Halifax and Nova Scotia, 1785-1888; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 2020.

One thing to note about the images I've shown above and those on Ancestry. These images from Library and Archives Canada appear to be transcriptions from earlier records. Below is the image from Ancestry for the minutes from AO 12/98 for John Derington that is taken fro mthe collection at The National Archives in the United Kingdom.

Audit Office., AO12: American Loyalists Claims, Series I, Piece 098: Minute Book, Halifax and Nova Scotia, 1785-1788, p 302, minutes pertaining to John Derington.

However, where else can we look? How about the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick? If we search using the Federated Database Search we will probably either want to search for all of the variations of the Darrington name we can think of, or we can with the Soundex Utility link on the Federated Database Search page to do some of the work for us. There the Soundex search finds 39 possible name variations based on the Soundex algorithm. Most don't apply to this name but there are some interesting possibilities.

In Daniel F Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics we find the entry for the death announcement of Johanna Darington, the wife of John, from the January 29, 1840 edition of The New Brunswick Royal Gazette:

d. Thursday morn., Short Ferry, Portland (St. John) age 95, Johanna DARINGTON relict of John DARINGTON, Hampton (Kings Co.), one of the British Loyalists. 

For the surname Darrington there several records concerning land that are of possible interest:
Index to New Brunswick Land Grants, 1784 - 1997 (RS686)

Name	DARRINGTON, John
Volume	NS-1
Page	9
Grant number	3
Place	Kingston Township
County	Sunbury
Date	1784-12-27
Accompanying plan	Yes
Acres	200
Microfilm	F16300
Comment	Re-registered NS Grant of 1784/07/15: Plan 150 Rs. *2/39

[This grant had 26 other names associated with it.]

Index to Land Petitions: Original Series, 1783-1918 (RS108)

Name	DARRINGTON, JOHN
Year	1796
County	Kings
Microfilm	F1039

[This petition has 4 hours names associated with it.]

Index to Land Petitions: Original Series, 1783-1918 (RS108)

Name	DARRINGTON, JOHN
Year	1798
County	Kings
Microfilm	F1040
See petition of	DICKIE, HECTOR

[This petition has 9 other names in addition to John Darrington.]

The first record from RS686 is interesting since that is a re-register of a Nova Scotia grant. Just to refresh your memory, until August 16, 1784, New Brunswick was known as Sunbury County, Nova Scotia. We are fortunate that the Nova Scotia Archives has digitized the early land papers in their collection Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800. Even better, the collection is name searchable!

There I found the image of the grant along with the surveyor's report and certificate, all available for download for free. This was a grant for a total of 4509 acres on the River Kennebeccasis in the Township of Kingston. County of Sunbury (now Kings County, New Brunswick) for 27 people.

John Darrington (Gaynor, James and others  —  year: 1784  —  place: New Brunswick); Record Group 20, Series A, Land Petitions and other material; digital images, Nova Scotia Archives, "Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800," Nova Scotia Archives (archives.novascotia.ca : accessed 31 Mar 2020).

What about those land petitions in RS108. I logged in to FamilySearch and looked at the catalogue for "Canada, New Brunswick" and came across an open set of digitized microfilms in the "Land petitions, 1783-1857" collection. Within the digitized microfilm "1793 Lee, Samuel - 1796 Knox, John" on DGS 8191398 (FHL 1288461) starting at image 738 I found  the land petition from the New Brunswick microfilm F1039.

Darrington, John et al, 1796; RS108, Land Petitions; Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton; FHL microfilm 1,288,461, image 739.

The next page has an important note on it concerning John Darrington where it states "...In the survey made by Jno. Wetmore 25th Sept 1798 only John Darrington is included"

Darrington, John et al, 1796; RS108, Land Petitions; Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton; FHL microfilm 1,288,461, image 740.

What about the second land petition from RS108? That can be found a few microfilms further down in the one titled "1796 Leonard, George Jr. - 1798 Raymond, Samuel". In this case you don't look for John Darrington but for Hector Dickie. There, starting at image 647, we find the file folder for that that petition. If you read it very carefully you will see that it is signed (yes, a real signature!) by John Darrington junior. So this is possibly the son of the John Darrington from New York that served in the 55th Regiment of Foot.

Yet another source of possible information concerning land, and even wills, are the Deed Registry Books for New Brunswick. In this case we want to check the New Brunswick, Kings County, deed registry books, 1785-1920; index, 1785-1992 also on FamilySearch.

"New Brunswick, County Deed Registry Books, 1780-1930," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6S6X-WX?cc=1392378&wc=M69X-RM9%3A13841801%2C16555201%2C22610502 : 21 May 2014), Kings > Index book, grantor-grantee > 1785-1880, A-L > image 314 of 781; County Office of Service, New Brunswick, Canada.

Here we see there are several instances where John is recorded as the grantor. The one that grabbed my attention was the will for John Darrington Senior found in book G-1 starting at page 238 that was written on February 21, 1798. There a copy of his will has been recorded in the deed registry book since the will involved real estate. In the will John Sr. mentions his wife Johanna and his son John, most probably the John Jr. that signed that second land petition in RS108.


There is also Lorenzo Sabine's work "Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, with an Historical Essay", published in 1864, where he records in volume I on page 359:

DARINGTON, JOHN.  He emigrated to New Brunswick at the peace, and died there. Joanna, his widow, died in Portland, in that Province, in 1840, at the age of ninety-five.

Finally, if we look at the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada web site in the Loyalist Directory we find an entry for John Darrington that referenced NYGBS; V36 N1 Jan 1905. That translates to the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society Record, volume 36, number 1, January 1905. You can find a copy on the Internet Archive and on page 27 you will find the one line entry about him.

There are many other resources that can be examined but I think we have answered the query in full and then some.

I hope that this helps in your own research into the Loyalists that settled in what later became New Brunswick, Canada.

Find a Picture of the SS Emperor

Every once in a while the fine folks that handle the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa Queries get an interesting genealogy research question that they aren't sure how to answer or even where to look for the answer. When that happens they often post the question to the BIFHSGO Members-only Discussion Group on Facebook. Here is one such question that was recently posted:

I have had an enquiry from somebody looking for a pictures of the ship SS Emperor–owned by Temperleys Line and sailed from London to Plymouth, arriving in Quebec City on 29 July 1872. Any suggestions? Thanks.

First of all, I love questions like these. It is only a single question and it has specific details.

For questions about old ships I often turn to two resources: Norway-Heritage and The Ships List.

A search of Norway-Heritage for the S/S/ Emperor of the Temperley Line resulted in:

Screen capture of the search results for the Temperley Line S/S Emperor from Norway-Heritage.

According to Norway-Heritage it doesn't make sense that the ship arrived in Quebec City on July 29, 1872 since it would take more than 7 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean at that time and it left London on July 22. But we will deal with that later, we have a picture to find. Unfortunately no other details are available on this site.

However a search of The Ships List didn't list the Emperor for the Temperley Line. That might make sense if the ship wasn't owned by Temperley but chartered as indicated by the results on Norway-Heritage. However, there is also a disclaimer on The Ships List page of:

"The following fleet list is not complete by any means, but is an attempt to collect the names of the companies, a brief history of each and the names of the vessels they used."

So, where to look next?

I've had some success in the past using the Lloyd's Register of Shipping. A number of these registers have been digitized and archived on the Internet Archive by the Lloyd's Register, Heritage & Education Centre, including the 1872 copy. Flipping through this book we can find the various ships named "Emperor":

Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipper. From 1st July, 1872, to the 30th June, 1873 (London: Wyman and Sons, Printers, 1872).

As you can see, there are several ships of that name in 1872. So how do we narrow it down to the ship we want?

For that we can turn to the newspapers. Since the ship is leaving out of England hopefully the British newspapers collection on Findmypast has a mention of that vessel. But don't search on a last name but on the keywords "Temperley" and "Emperor". Only nine articles came back from that search with several of them from the Lloyd's List published in London, England. Here is the clipping from the July 22, 1872 edition of the Lloyd's List for "London - Vessels Entered Outwards for Foreign Ports."

"Vessels Entered Outwards for Foreign Ports," Lloyd's List, 22 Jul 1872, p. 6; digital images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 26 Mar 2020), British newspapers.

The columns are: Port, Vessel, Master, Fig., Tn, Dk., Broker, Entd, Class.

So it looks like the Temperley's Emperor had a Master with the last name of Leighton. In the list of ships in the Lloyd's Register of Shipping there is an Emperor recorded with a Master of "R.Leightn". That looks like a good match. It seems that this Emperor was a screw type vessel built of iron that was built by Napier in Glasgow in 1849 and it had the Official Number 13594.

We have a bit more information but still no picture. Maybe searching for the Napier shipbuilders in Glasgow might give us a lead. A google search lead me to the Wikipedia page for Robert Napier and Sons. But we don't know if this is the right Napier. However, at the bottom of that Wikipedia page there was a link to the Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Don't you just love it when there are links to sources and external pages in the Wikipedia articles!

On the Caledonian Maritime Research Trust home page using the ship name Emperor and 1849 as the year it was built we get back:

Screen capture of search results for Emperor built in 1849 on Caledonian Maritime Research Trust site.

Only one ship built by a Napier and this is the ship with the O.N. (Official Number) 13594. The same number found in the Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Looks like a really good match. Clicking on the vessel name reveals the following information:

Screen capture of details for Emperor built in 1849 on Caledonian Maritime Research Trust site.

It seems that it was originally built as an cargo iron paddle steamer by Robert Napier of Govan, Scotland. However, in 1871 it was converted to a screw steamer. But the best news was when scrolling to the bottom of the page a picture of the ship was found.

Paddle Steamers Rob Roy, Emperor and Queen of Scotland (William Griffin) Photo credit: Hull Maritime Museum.

This was painted circa 1849 since that is when the Emperor was launched. This would have been when the ship was an iron paddle steamer.

As for the date of arrival being July 29, 1872. That just didn't make sense since it took much longer than seven days to make the Atlantic crossing in the late 1800s. So it was off to look up of the Canadian passenger lists on Ancestry for the Emperor arriving in 1872.

Ancestry.com, "Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935," database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Mar 2020); citing S.S. Emperor passenger list dated 22 July 1872, p. 1.

As you can see, the date is 22 July 1872, the date of the departure. So when did it arrive in Quebec?

Once again we turn to the newspapers and come across an entry in the August 13, 1872 edition of the North British  Daily Mail where on page 7 under "Arrivals at Foreign Ports" it is recorded:

Emperor (ss), at Quebec, Aug. 10.

It took a bit of effort to track all this down but now we have a picture of the vessel, although before conversion to a screw steamer, the date of departure, and the correct date of arrival in Quebec. All done without leaving the comfort of your home. Not bad for an hour or two of effort.

A Challenge: 1861 Census of Canada - Agricultural Schedule

Recently a genealogy researcher colleague of mine asked for some assistance in locating the agricultural schedule from the 1861 Census of Canada. This was her question to me:

My problem is I want to look at a microfilm reel of LAC but I find the Heritage search engine terrible.

I am looking for C-1305 the 1861 census for Ottawa County.  What I want is the agriculture schedule that follows the nominal one.  It may not be on the site.

Is there a way to just ask for a particular reel.

Normally it would be as simple as viewing the microfilm at the Library and Archives Canada building here in Ottawa but with the COVID-19 lock down in effect in Ottawa (and much of the world) and the various buildings closed to the public it makes for a bit of a challenge.

The first step for me was the obvious one, try various searches on the Héritage project site just to verify what is being found:

• "C-1305" - That microfilm didn't appear at the top of the list.
• "census" - Various census returns for the Township of Augusta, 1801 & 1818 returns for Edwardsburgh Township (includes various years forElizabethtown, Johnstown District, Oxford-on-the-Rideau Township, Westminster Township, and Woodhouse Township), Lower Canada/Canada East census returns for 1825, Department of Indian Affairs: Census records, and also other census returns but no 1861.
• "agricultural" - Lower Canada / Canada East census returns for 1825 and many other microfilms that pertained to agriculture but no 1861 census.

So it appears that my colleague's finding that the digitized microfilm reels for the 1861 Census of Canada is not on the Héritage project site is correct.

As an aside, I agree that the Héritage project search is not great but I can't really fault the search engine itself. The challenge is that the search system only looks in the metadata and descriptive information of the microfilms. Often the information provided is minimal at best and I've found that it doesn't list all the volumes found on the microfilm. When using the search feature on the Héritage project site make sure you check out the "Search Tips" page. Even I learned a few new tricks in reviewing that page.

However, back to the matter in hand, finding the 1861 Census of Canada agricultural schedule returns.

Next it was off to the landing page for 1861 Census of Canada on the Library and Archives Canada web site to find out what they have to say about the various schedules.

Schedules
Personal Census

The enumeration data were collected using documents known as schedules. Each province submitted unique schedules. Questions were asked either in French or in English in Canada East depending on the language spoken by the enumerator.
Agricultural Census

Agricultural returns provide information such as lot and concession number, acreage, livestock and agricultural products. The agricultural returns are listed by the name of the head-of-household and can be found after the personal returns for the entire county.

In some cases, the name of the head of household was indexed both from the personal census and from the agricultural census returns. This has resulted in more than one entry for one individual and is particularly noted in the returns for Canada West.

So it appears that the Agricultural schedule for the 1861 Census of Canada was microfilmed. Note the sentence that I've underlined, it should be found after the personal returns for the entire county.

I know that Ancestry has the images of the Personal schedule of the 1861 Census of Canada searchable online. Might the agricultural schedule also be included but not indexed at the end of the county returns? Even if you don't have your own subscription to Ancestry you may be fortunate to be able to access to the Library edition from home via your local library's web site like what the Ottawa Public Library has done during these challenging times.

On Ancestry go to the "1861 Census of Canada" collection page. However, don't search by name. Instead we are going to browse the collection.

First of all, do you know what province Ottawa county is in? If you said Canada West or Ontario you need to guess again. It is in Canada East (now Quebec). Yes, that got me too!

So select Canada East from the Province drop down box and then click on Ottawa county. This will bring up the first page of the returns for Ottawa county.

Screen capture of the 1861 Census of Canada, Canada East, Ottawa county, image 1 from Ancestry.ca.

We aren't going to scroll through the virtual microfilm but instead we will type in the last page number in the box at the bottom of the screen, "577", to see if it is an image of the Personal or Agricultural schedule for Ottawa county.

Screen capture of the 1861 Census of Canada, Canada East, Ottawa county, image 577 from Ancestry.ca.

It looks like it is still a Personal schedule from Ottawa (Outaouais) county. With the virtual microfilm strip displayed we can see that the next county is Pontiac in Canada Eest. So it doesn't seem like the Agricultural schedule is included on Ancestry.

But don't give up yet, there is one other place. However, it will take a bit of copying and pasting and some work on our part.

We need to first to look at the URL that Ancestry has used to display that last page:

https://www.ancestry.ca/interactive/1570/4108806_00007?backurl=&ssrc=&backlabel=Return#?imageId=4108807_00556

It is made up of several parts. The "https://www.ancestry.ca/interactive/1570" is the base of the 1861 Census of Canada interactive viewer but don't bother going there since it isn't for us humans. "4108806_00007" is the census page we first started from. The key piece of information though is what comes after the "imageId": "4108807_00556". We are going to need this for the next part and the Library and Archives Canada data collection image page starting point for the 1861 Census of Canada (I found this through my use of the LAC site and looking at their images):

http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/

Putting the two together plus ".jpg" at the end creates http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4108807_00556.jpg and if you click on that link you bring up the same page as seen on Ancestry.

But what does that give us?

What if you increment the image number 00556 to 00557 in that URL, does it give you a page or an error? Go ahead, give it a try, I'll wait.

If you did every thing right (you did remember to keep that ",jpg" at the end of the URL?) you saw a page that isn't on Ancestry. Curious isn't it? There are even more pages after that until we get to http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4108807_00560.jpg.

1861 Census of Canada, Canada East, Ottawa County, agricultural schedule,enumeration district (ED) Ottawa, cover page, digital image, Library and Archives Canada. Collections Canada (http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4108807_00560.jpg: accessed 22 Mar 2020).

This looks very promising. If we keep incrementing that image number we find the pages for the agricultural schedule for that county.

Now this doesn't work in all of the cases. If you get something like the following text:

Object not found!

The requested URL was not found on this server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 404
data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca
Apache

Don't worry. It just means probably one of two things...
1. you forgot the .jpg at the end of the URL, or
2. you've tried to go beyond the end of the microfilm.

If it is #2 then just increment the number before the underscore to hopefully get to the next microfilm. So in the case of this microfilm we are looking at the virtual reel 4108807. The last image is image 00776. If you try to display 00777 it gives you the above error. To get to the next virtual reel use 410888_00001 and continue on...hopefully

Yet the reels presented by Ancestry aren't necessarily in the same order as what Library and Archives Canada has laid out. An example of this is for Lanark County, Canada West. The LAC equivalent last page is http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4391940_00653.jpg. But if I increment the image number to 00655 I see the following:

Screen capture of the 1861 Census of Canada, Canada West, Lanark county, image 655 from Library and Archives Canada, Collections Canada.

Right away I can see that I need to change to the next reel. It might be 4391941 but until you look it might not be (it wasn't in this case). However, the last place in the list for Lanark County is Smith's Falls. If I look on Ancestry in the 1861 Census of Canada for anyone living in "Lanark, Ontario, Canada" with an exact keyword of "Smith's Falls" I should find an image to give me a clue. At first it didn't find anyone so I removed the apostrophe and found people living in  "Smiths Falls".

It is a really long URL from Ancestry when I look at the image and at first I didn't see any imageID= in it. So I clicked the "next image" icon on the image. There again the URL was really long but at the end of it I saw "imageId=4391558_00297" so there is hope yet. I used that number to create the URL on the Collections Canada site as the starting point. A bit of hopping forward I found the agricultural schedule for the 1861 Census of Canada for Lanark county, Canada West at http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4391558_00341.jpg.

Why should you care about the 1861 Census of Canada agricultural schedule?  Is knowing the number of bushels of turnips really that important? Probably not, but the agricultural schedule does give you the lot and concession where they lived if they resided outside of a town. With that you might be able to find the land records showing where they bought or received as a grant the land they farmed, and to whom the land was sold after the family moved away.

As you can see, it isn't a simple process to find these agricultural returns for the 1861 Census of Canada but it can be done with help from Ancestry and a little bit of work on your part.

Researching Canadian Soldiers Who Died in the Second World War

Cross of Sacrifice at Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

With the 75th anniversary commemorating the end of the Second World War in Europe approaching I've been seeing a number of posts in various Facebook genealogy groups asking about how to research family members that served in that war. This post will focus on some of the key resources I use to find information about those Canadians that served and died during the Second World War.

As an aside, for records for those that survived the war you will need to visit the Library and Archives Canada page "Requests for Military Service Files". Be forewarned, there appears to be about a 14-18 month backlog in processing the requests. If the service member is still alive, make sure that they request their file right now. Once they pass away, for a period of 20 years, only limited personal information will be released to an immediate family member (spouse, parent, sibling, child or grandchild) of the individual concerned if proof of relationship and proof of death are provided.

My starting point for any of research of a Canadian that served and died in the military during the Second World War is the Second World War: 1939-1945 at Library and Archives Canada. From that page you can learn about what databases and records are available, read the research guides, and find other sources of possible information. You can also go to the Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947 to start your search.

When you search you can just put in the surname and given name(s) of the person. However, if you click on "Show Advanced Search Options" you can fill in additional details. I normally don't use the advanced search fields but for a common name it might help limit the number of entries returned.

Partial screen capture from a search for William Smith in the Library and Archives Canada database "Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947".

What you will hopefully see is a short list of results with their name, date of birth, date of death, service number, a an item number you can click on to see additional details and possibly download the service file. Most of the results won't have a PDF of the service file attached to them. In fact, only a very small number of the files have been digitized and placed on the Library and Archives Canada site. But don't fret for there are other ways of viewing the files. Keep in mind that the digitization efforts have focused on creating a "genealogy package". This is a selection of what has been determined to be the most relevant documents from the file which highlights the service including enlistment, units served with, family details, medal entitlements, and circumstances of death.

One of the easiest ways of view the files is through Ancestry in their Canada, WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947 collection. According to the Library and Archives Canada page you only need a free account and not a paid subscription to access this collection. Alternately, if you don't want to give Ancestry your e-mail address you can get access to the institution version of Ancestry at your local library or Family History Center (and affiliates).

Partial screen capture of the abstracted record for William Scott, service number K23205, in the Ancestry "Canada, WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947" collection.

When you do find the entry on Ancestry don't click on the "View" button. That will only bring you to the attestation paper. Instead, click on the "View File Start" since that will bring you to the start of the file folder. From there you can download to your computer the individual pages in the service file. Be forewarned, some of these files can get quite large but there are all kinds of interesting details in the files.

Now that you have the service file, what next?

Stop and take the time to read the file.

Then re-read that file.

And then once more read the file!

There are all kinds of nuggets of information in those files. Often I will go through the file five or six times and record the details into my own genealogy database. To help me decipher the abbreviations in the file I sometimes consult the "Military Abbreviations used in Service Files" page on the LAC web site.

Once that is done I usually head over to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site to search for the person there. If the name is relatively common you will probably want to filter by "Served with" and the "War". On that site you may find the pages from the Graves Registration Reports, Graves Concentration Reports, and what was written on the grave marker or memorial.

Next I head off to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial to see what they might have on their site. Yu might find an image of the grave marker or memorial, a link to the Second World War Book of Remembrance, and, since people can upload their own images, sometimes copies of newspaper articles or pictures of the person.

If there was a grave marker but I haven't found an image of it yet I will check Find A Grave to see if someone has uploaded the picture. That is how I first saw the marker for my Grand Uncle Ronald MacGregor Warrener who was buried in the Agira Canadian War Cemetery in Italy.

In the service file you may come across a "Field Service" report that details the cause of death and where the body was initially buried.

Canada, "Military Service Record: William Scott, Regimental Number K23205, RG 24, Volume 27004," Field Report; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

Often this is a temporary burial but it usually fairly close to where the person died. Sometimes there is enough information in the burial location to find the place on Google Maps. For maps from the war I will often head over to the Digital Archive @ McMaster University Library Maps Collection and select the World War II (1939-1945) collection. However, most of those maps are from before the Invasion of Normandy on 6 Jun 1944. But sometimes I get lucky and find a map from after the invasion that has the details I am looking for.

If you are looking for the War Diaries from the Second World War of the unit they served in you might be fortunate enough to find them digitized on the LAC partner site Héritage. Visit the War Diaries, Ship Logs and Operations Record Books page for details about how to search for any diaries held by Library and Archives Canada.

Sample page of a War Diary for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, microfilm T-10530, Library and Archives Canada, http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t10530.

Keep in mind that these are not the diaries written by the person that served in the war but of the activities of the unit. However, there will be details about what was happening with the unit including where they may have run into the enemy.

Don't forget to do a Google search of the unit that they served in. There are books that have been written about the various units in the Second World War. For example, in the case of William Scott above, he was in the "65 Cdn A/Tk Bty 5 Cdn A/Tk Regt". This translates into "65th Canadian Anti-Tank Battery, 5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment". A search on the "5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment" yields a link to WorldCat where you can find the book "The History of the 5th Canadian Anti-tank Regiment : 10 Sept., 1941-10 June, 1945" about the regiment's role in the Second World War. There is even a book written about the battery William Scott was in called "The History of the 65th Canadian Anti-tank Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery : 9 September 1941- 20 September 1945".

If the regiment has a museum or an archivist, like the the 48th Highlanders of Canada which my Grand Uncle Ronald Warrener served in, then reach out to them to see what they might have in their files. I actually visited the museum of the 48th Highlanders of Canada on one of my trips to Toronto. They didn't have much on hand about Ronald but a few weeks later I received a package in the mail with a chapter describing the battle he was in and he was even mentioned by name. I returned the favour and sent what I had about Ronald back to them for their files.

Hopefully some of the sites and tips in this post will help you to learn more about those Canadians that served and died in the Second World War.