Missing images from the 1861 Census of Canada West on Ancestry?

The following comment in my blog post "A Challenge: 1861 Census of Canada - Agricultural Schedule" has led me down an interesting journey.

"...I was disappointed to see that in 61 they didn't list livestock, just crops etc. Was this a universal change in all of Canada, or maybe I'm missing something. Would have loved to see livestock 'growth' from 51 to 61..."

Before I go any further, I have to warn you that this may get a little messy since I will be dealing with manipulating URLs and and following links upon links to get to an answer.

To answer the question posed I first needed to know what the enumerators were supposed to collect. For that I turned to the Library and Archives Canada Census of 1861 page. There, under the "Instructions to enumerators" section they link to the Instructions to Enumerators found on Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) site. They reference David P. Gagan, "Enumerator's Instructions for the Census of Canada, 1852 and 1861, "Histoire sociale/Social History", Vol. VII, No. 14 (November 1974): 355-365 as one of their sources for the information. Fortunately that journal, "Histoire sociale/Social History", has been made available to us online and the article itself can be found at "Enumerator's Instructions for the Census of Canada 1852 and 1861"

What caught my eye in instructions provided in the article by Mr. Gagan was this:

"In column 50 it has been thought desirable to designate the value of working horses separate from other animals, as they are an important element in the agricultural policy of the country.

Column 54 should include the value of all the live stock mentioned in columns 46 to 53 inclusive. They form a very important item in the wealth of the country and will be a criteria of the comparative state of agriculture in each township or county, and also in Canada as compared with other countries."

So there should be at least 54 columns in the return for the agricultural census in 1861. Here is an example from the Township of Montague in the County of Lanark, Canada West from the 1861 Census of Canada collection on Ancestry:

1861 census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Canada West, Lanark County, district 11, Township of Montague, Agricultural schedule, p 22; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 Feb 2021); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-1042-1043.

Only one problem. On Ancestry the column numbers only go from 1 to 38. If I go to the next image on Ancestry it is just like this image, columns 1 to 38. Where are these mysteriously missing additional columns that, according to David P. Gagan, should exist?

Normally I will often make use of collections on Ancestry since their search and navigation tools allow me to quickly find information. However, since something seems to be a bit funky here, I'm going to go to follow my own instructions in my blog post and use the images found on the Library and Archives Canada site.

But first I need to record something from Ancestry, the URL of the image that they present to me in my browser.

https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1570/images/4391558_00386?usePUB=true&_phsrc=FHJ71689&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=798644016

Most of this stuff in the URL doesn't mean a lot to me but I do know that the 4391558_00386 part is actually useful. This is the image reference from Library and Archives Canada. This is really important.

In my blog post "A Challenge: 1861 Census of Canada - Agricultural Schedule" I provide the instructions on how to that that number and create a URL to display the image found on the Library and Archives Canada servers: https://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4391558_00386.jpg.

Lo and behold, the correct image appears.

What if I make one tiny little change to that URL on the Library and Archives Canada site by changing the last digit from 6 to 7 so it brings up the next page: https://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/1861/jpg/4391558_00387.jpg.

Census of 1861, Canada West, Lanark County, district 11, Township of Montague, Agricultural schedule, p 22 (continued); RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 17 Feb 2021); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-1042-1043.

Just a second...

There are our missing columns! They go from 39 to 69. There is information about the livestock, minerals mined, and even if they had a "pleasure carriage". This is really interesting stuff that can add to the story of your ancestors. If they are listed in the 1851 and 1871 census and we can find the agriculture schedule entries for them we might be able to learn about their ups and downs. Did they get more land? Do they have more or less sheep, pigs, horses, or cows?

But back to the issue at hand. I now know that the pages with the missing columns were microfilmed and even digitized since I can find them on the Library and Archives Canada servers. How about going back to Ancestry to see if I missed something.

On Ancestry we can use the navigation buttons and virtual filmstrip to move around to the next and previous images. Instead of concentrating on the image, let's concentrate on those URLs.

As I mentioned, the image I was looking at in the agricultural census had the URL starting with  https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1570/images/4391558_00386. If I put that into my browser the image appears without any issues as long as my subscription lets me see that collection and associated images. 

What happens if I click on the "Next image" navigation button to bring up the next page in Ancestry's collection of images? It should go from 4391558_00386 to 4391558_00387...right?

Hmmm....the URL displayed is https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1570/images/4391558_00388. It just jumped from 386 to 388. I'm not a genius when it comes to advanced mathematics but shouldn't 387 have come next? That's what was next when I looked at the images on the Library and Archives Canada site. What about going to the next image? It leapt over 389 and displayed the image with the URL https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1570/images/4391558_00390.

How about if I play with the URL on Ancestry like I did with the one from Library and Archives Canada and change the last digit from 6 to 7? Will it display the missing page?

Screen capture of Ancestry web page for image 4391558_00387 in the 1861 Census of Canada collection.

Nope. Instead it displays what I've come to call the "missing image" page on Ancestry.

So it looks like Ancestry has decided to not include the second part of the agriculture return pages for the Census of 1861 for Canada West in their collection of images. In my opinion this does us, the researcher, a disservice since it is an omission of information that can shed additional light into the lives of our ancestors. Fortunately, with a bit of effort, we can still find the information on the Library and Archives Canada site.

It also reminds us that we can't rely on what the <insert genealogy site here> decides to show us which they got from somewhere else. Whenever possible look to see if the original site has the information and take a look there for additional clues, or in this case, missing images.