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)!

Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Birth Registrations

One of the most common questions I see asked in the various Facebook groups related to genealogy is along the lines of, "How do I find an Ontario birth certificate for a relative?"

 

Registration or Certificate?

Keep in mind that usually folks aren't actually looking for the birth certificate but a copy of the completed birth registration form. When I was born back in the 1960s the paperwork that was filled in was titled "Statement of Birth". That document has all the details about my birth such as my parents, their age and province where they were born, and other details about my birth. There is also the Ontario Birth Certificate card but that only has my name, date and place of birth, and the registration number. As genealogy and family history researchers we generally want the document with as much information as possible.

Depending on the year the Ontario birth registration form that is publicly available may be one with space for recording the details of six children or the form may be a two page form with each line an entry for a child. If the registration is found on a two page form then make sure you also download that second page!

Years Covered

Before even starting to answer the question we need to know the approximate time frame when they suspect the birth took place. If it is between 1869 and 1917 then the initial short answer is often to have the original poster visit the "Ontario Vital Statistics Home page > Birth Registrations" page from the Archives of Ontario and read what  has been written in their various pathfinders and also in Research Guide 202, Vital Statistics Records. I strongly recommend everyone at least read that Research Guide!

Why 1869 as the starting year?

On July 1, 1869 CAP. XXX, An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths came into effect in the Province of Ontario. That was the date people were supposed to start registering births with the civil authorities. The magic word is "supposed". In the paper "Incomplete Registration of Births in Civil Systems: The Example of Ontario, Canada, 1990-1960" that originally appeared in the HISTORICAL METHODS, Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 1990 by George Emery of the Department of History at the University of Western Ontario it states that:

"...the provincial inspector of Vital Statistics guessed that the returns for 1898 were only 80 percent complete..."

This was almost 40 years after the act came into effect. No wonder we sometimes have challenges finding the birth registrations in Ontario!

What about the 1917 as the ending year?

As I write this there is a 105 year privacy veil over the Ontario birth registrations. After the 105 years have passed the Office of the Registrar General for Ontario transfers the indexes and registrations to the Archives of Ontario. Based on communications with the Archives of Ontario, it won't be until sometime in 2024 that the 1918 birth registrations and indexes for Ontario are made available to the public.

If looking for a birth registration before 1869 you might get lucky and find it as a delayed birth registration. Otherwise you will be looking at church registers for baptism records...assuming the denomination the family belongs to practices infant baptism...and hoping the priest recorded when the child was born.

If the birth is from 1918 or later then one needs to apply though ServiceOntario at the Official government ID and certificates page. Note that there are restrictions for who can request the records and a fee is charged. Make sure that you request the "Certified copy of birth registration" copy. It is a little more expensive but it "...contains any changes that have been made to the birth registration including any name changes and corrections of information (as a historical record)" and is a copy of the original registration.

Where are the Records?

Archives of Ontario

For those living or visiting Toronto, Ontario, Canada then you can visit the Archives of Ontario and look at the various microfilms in person and also access the digital images for the registrations up to 1917.

FamilySearch

FamilySearch has the digitized microfilms of the Ontario birth registrations and indexes in their "Births, stillbirths, and delayed registration with indexes, 1869-1912" collection. What is really nice about using FamilySearch is that the site is free. If you don't want to have to manually go through the various microfilms, FamilySearch has a collection specific search page "Canada, Ontario Births, 1869-1912". There you can search by name, place, year range, and even by the names of the parents.

Screen capture from FamilySearch of the "Canada, Ontario Births, 1869-1912" database with images search page.

Why search by the names of the parents? You might just find children who were born and died between the census years, what I often call the "lost children".

However, FamilySearch in their "Births, stillbirths, and delayed registration with indexes, 1869-1912" collection also has the index pages created by the government. In those tricky cases when I can't find the birth registration using the usual search tools I may manually look through these index files to see if I can spot the name I'm looking for and then, with the registration number, look up the registration itself in the digitized microfilms. 

Is it easy? Not necessarily but once you get used to the process it actually isn't too hard.

But what about after 1912? For that we need to go to Ancestry.

Ancestry

Ancestry has their "Ontario, Canada Births, 1832-1917" collection. Wait a second...1832? Yes, there is an entry that states that Henry Purdy was born 31 May 1832 and registered in the County of Carleton in the Division of Huntley on 25 Sep 1883. [Note: this image below was taken in 2022 before Ancestry made available the 1917 birth registrations on their site.]

Screen capture from Ancestry.ca of the "Ontario, Canada Births, 1832-1916" search page.

Much like FamilySearch, you can search this Ancestry database based on a number of categories. There have been times where I've searched just on a first name, a specific year, and a county to find a last name that has been incorrectly transcribed either due to the poor quality of the image, horrible handwriting, or the failing eyesight of the transcriber (at least that's what I hope it is!).

You can access the search results in this collection if you have a subscription to Ancestry or from most Ontario public libraries for free.

What Ancestry doesn't have is the original indexes created by the government. Fortunately for us Wayne Bower was kind enough to digitize the 1914-1917 index images from the microfilms from the Archives of Ontario and make them available on his page "Ontario Birth Registers 1914-1917". Notice that Wayne includes the index pages for the 1917 registrations. 

Screen capture of part of a page of the Ontario Vital Statistics Index for 1917 for the letter M p. 12 from Bower-McBurney Genealogy - Ontario Birth Registers.

Between FamilySearch collection and Wayne Bower's work we have all the vital statistics indexes from 1869-1917 with the exception of 1913. We can't win them all but I know I will gladly make use of what I can find!

MyHeritage

MyHeritage also has the Ontario birth registrations. For those who are members of Ontario Ancestors, AKA Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), we have access from home to the library edition of MyHeritage. Even some public libraries have this access so check with your local library. There we have access to their "Ontario Births, 1869-1912" collection. Unfortunately it is only an index.

Screen capture from MyHeritage from the Ontario Births, 1869-1912 collection for Margory May Payne, born 12 May 1910.

But...

If you look closer at the information in the index entry you will notice a Digital Folder Number along with an image number in the returned information. That "Digital Folder Number" is the "Image Group Number (DGS)" on FamilySearch. The Image Number is the number of the image (good name isn't it?) found on that digitized microfilm roll. So if one wants to see the image (we always do, right?) then we can search for the Digital Film Number on FamilySearch and, once it is located, go to the image number indicated.

Findmypast

For those using Findmypast the Ontario civil registration of births can be found in their "Ontario Birth Index 1860-1920" collection. There we will find the transcription and a link to the images. I know it says it is up to 1920 but since the Archives of Ontario doesn't even have the 1918 registration yet something must be a little strange. The 1920 birth registration is actually the back side of a 1904 Delayed Registration of Birth and is not a birth date at all...oops

Based on the index copyright notation on the transcription it would appear that Findmypast is making use of the index from FamilySearch to aid in the searching of this collection.

Other Sites

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.

Screen capture from The Ontario Vital Statistics Project for Ontario Birth Registrations "Maa_Maq" Surnames page.

Of course the local historical or genealogy societies might also have created indexes to help you in finding the civil registration of birth. So check your local societies or public library for those works.

Still Can't Find It!

It could be as simple as the birth may not have been registered. The paper by George Emery, "Incomplete Registration of Births in Civil Systems: The Example of Ontario, Canada, 1990-1960" which I mentioned in the Years Covered section goes into some detail about this issue.

Don't be fixated on the year or place that you may have found for that person via other records. People may not even know the year they were born so at some point they may have settled on a year that they felt they looked like as an adult. Also if the mother-to-be is having her first child or experiencing a difficult pregnancy then she may have gone to live with her mother or an older sister for support and help with the birth. These folks may live in another county, province, or even country. So be open to possible suggestions and hints from the various genealogy sites.

An alternate source and often the most promising one for the 1869-1917 period, and of course the time before civil registration, are the parish registers of the various denominations in the area the family resided. It will all depend on what church they attended as to whether the records have been digitized and placed online for easy access. Sometimes, if you know the religion the family followed, it is easier to write an email or letter to the local churches asking if they can look for a possible baptism entry in their registers. Hopefully the priest or clerk also wrote down the date of birth in the register.

You can also find in the 1901 Census of Canada the recording of the date of birth for everyone listed in the household. However, I always take the date recorded there with a huge grain of salt. If all the other dates of births in that census for the other family members of household can be corroborated as being accurate then the odds are that one birth date are you are looking for is correct.

Hopefully some of the guidance here will help you locate that elusive Ontario civil birth registration or at least confirm the date of birth in other records.

[8 Jun 2024: updated for 1917 birth registrations that are now available through Ancestry]

Finding on the Ground: An Urban Address

In my various "Finding on the Ground" series of posts the one type of property I kept glossing over were the lots in the urban areas. I kept ignoring those places for only one reason...it can be a challenge locating the records on the Ontario Land Property Records Portal, AKA OnLand. However, in this post I will walk you through the process and resources I used to find a lot in Galt, now part of Cambridge, Ontario.

The initial question was posted in the Ontario Ancestors group on Facebook:

"I know of a house in Cambridge (Galt) that I would like the Concession and Lot number.
Once I have that I know how to retrieve information off of Onland.ca, I just need the actual Concession/lot.  How do I find this please."

After a bit of back and forth to get the specific address and the person of interest (just a reminder of the importance of providing detailed information in your questions: Asking Good Questions; Creating Good Answers) I learned the following details:

• The modern address in Galt is: 46 Park Hill Rd (West of the Grand River) in Cambridge, Ontario.
• She is looking for information about the land transactions involving William John Millican since he own that property around 1883.
  

And so the adventure began!

Step 1 - Where is it now?

The first step I took was to search the OnLand Property Address in the virtual Waterloo Land Registry Office (58). Why that LRO? I didn't know which office was responsible for Galt or Cambridge so I just typed in Galt, it's shorter than typing Cambridge, in the "Find your Land Registry Office" box and OnLand informed me that it was in "WATERLOO (LRO 58)"

For the address I initially typed "46 Park Hill" but no results were returned. So I just removed the space between "Park" and "Hill". Sometimes you do have to play around with the name of the street to get the "right" name in OnLand. Eight results appeared with almost all of them for 46 Parkhill Road West Cambridge found on Lot 1 in Plan 470 of Cambridge. But there was also a 46 Parkhill Road East. 

Partial screen capture of the Address Search results for 46 Parkhill in Waterlook (LRO 58) on OnLand.

So which one is it?

I started with an assumption that the 46 ParkHill Road West was the one I wanted so I next switched to the Property Map feature on OnLand and searched by the street name "Parkhill". Three possible streets were listed: PARKHILL CRT, PARKHILL ROAD, and PARKHILL ROAD EAST. Since I didn't see a "PARKHILL ROAD WEST" listed I selected just "PARKHILL ROAD". 

Screen capture of "Search by Street" for Parkhill in Waterloo (LRO 58) on OnLand.

It looks like I choose wisely since that road is west of the Grand River.

I then zoomed out on that map. Just a word to the wise, it does take a few seconds for OnLand to redraw the map so be patient and take it slowly. 

It looked to me that Park Hill Road West might be within Concession 11 possibly on lots 9, 10, or 11 based on the other lot notations nearby. The map also seems to indicate that it is "WGR" (West of Grand River) so it could be within lot 1 or 2 WGR. So we still have some work to do.

Step 2 - Historical Abstract/Index Books

Next it was off to the Historical Books section for the virtual Waterloo Registry Office.

Normally I would browse these books but since I have a plan number from the address search I searched for Plan 470. Amazingly only one result was returned. Unfortunately it seemed like the instruments start from 1905 and I'm looking for property from around 1883. Yet there are still some very useful clues found if I pay attention. On the first page it says "James Patterson's Sy" and the next states "James Patterson Survey" at the top. On the third page it has written near the top "From 10 in 11th Con"

At this point in my research, since I was doing this on a Saturday and it was approaching 6 p.m., I no longer could use OnLand since they shutdown access to these resources at 6 p.m. on Saturday. GRRR!

I decided to go to the "Make a Topographic Map" site from the Ontario Government. Under the Navigation option in the top menu bar I selected Search and then Address as the type of search. There I typed "46 Park hill road west, cambridge" (without the quotes) and the map automagically zoomed in to the location. If I had typed "46 parkhill road west, cambridge" this site was actually smart enough to suggest "46 Park Hill Road West, Cambridge". But I did find that I had to state "road" as part of the address. The "west" was optional since it gave suggestions for the full address.

From there I zoomed in until I spotted faintly written clues like "LOT 3 WEST OF GRAND RIVER CON 11" AND "LOT 2 WEST OF GRANT RIVER CON 11". Looking at what looks to be boundary lines it would seem that "46 Park Hill Rd W" lies within Lot 2 West of Grand River, Concession 11. Again, that is a guess but it seems to match the note from the plan documents.

Next it was off to FamilySearch to look in their copies of the Abstract Index Books found under "Canada, Ontario, Waterloo" for Galt.

Looking on FamilySearch in the Abstract Index Books under "Canada, Ontario, Waterloo" for Galt (v. 1 & 2) I come across in Volume 1 of the Galt books for the "Town of Galt" a page for "Subdivision Lot No. 2 Concession XI West of Grand River: Sometimes called North Halves of Lots Nos. 10 and 11" at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-T3LM. The details are found on the bottom half of that digitized page. The instruments start in 1841 and go to 1863. Much later on in that same digitized set of books I see "Subdivision Lot No. 2 West of Grand River Conn XI. Sometimes called North halves of Lots Nos. 10 & 11" (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-TS7M) and those instruments go from 1866 to 1877. That appears to be continuation of the first page but found in Volume 2 of the Galt books. Unfortunately the later volumes for Galt aren't on FamilySearch.

Since I was stuck on FamilySearch I had to wait until OnLand opened up for online business at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

Back on OnLand within the Historical Books for the Waterloo LRO (58) I filtered the township/municipality on "Galt". I noticed that there are books labelled 1, 2, 3, 1A, 2A, etc. There was even a Book 2 which had the description "SUBDIVISION 2". So I wondered if they were the volume numbers seen when looking in the FamilySearch Abstract Index Books for Galt. A quick glance and it seemed like they were. Towards the start of some of the books an index could be found (woohoo!) so I checked the first several pages for each of the books and in Book 3A on image 2 I saw "James Patterson's Survey of Pt. 10 Con XI W.G.R. (470)" and it looks like it started around folio [page] 427. That looked really promising based on what was found recorded for Plan 470. Book 3A only went up to page 220 but the images for Book 3B started at page 221 so I started looking there. Page 427 started at image 414 but I didn't see James Patterson's Survey mentioned there so I went to the next image, 415, and there was "James Patterson's Survey of Part of Lot No. 10 Con XI W.G.R". 

It would seem that each folio is made up of two images, a top and a bottom section. There was Lot No. 1 but the entries were from 1884 to 1889 and I didn't see any Millican's mentioned. But in one of the columns it stated "Cont. on page 431". Next it was off to find page 431 stamped in the upper right corner and it was found on image 422. On the second image from page 431 (image 423) there was "Lot No. 1 James Patterson's Survey (Cont. from 427.).

Extract from OnLand's Waterloo (LRO 58), Abstract/Parcel Register Book, for Galt, Book 3B, image 423 of 446 for Lot No. 1 of James Patterson's Survey continued from p. 427.

What do I see but a B & S, instrument 8227, on 14 Mar 1890 and registered 18 Mar 1890, with the grantor being James Patterson et ux and the grantee listed as W.J. Millican.

Keep in mind that these books for Galt are a real mess when it comes to how the abstracts were recorded since the top of the page stated "Lot No. 11 Concession X" but we have other lots apparently not on that concession listed on the same page.

Step 3 - Ordering

The next challenge might be to get a copy of that B&S instrument, no. 8227. However, a copy isn't available on FamilySearch since they only have the Land Record copy books up to 1875. This means ordering the document from OnLand and I've written how to do that in my post "Finding on the Ground: Ordering from OnLand".

The first step is to "create" a registration number using a prefix code and the instrument number. To find that prefix code I needed to click on the "correct prefix and range" link found on the "Instruments, Plans and Evidence" page accessed from the OnLand Documents page. That link brings us to the ServiceOntario Prefixes and Cross-References page. Opening up Waterloo LRO 58 there is a PDF link for the Instrument Prefix List for Waterloo. Scrolling through the PDF I see that there is a "Galt" entry which covers the time period of 1853 to 1955 and instrument numbers 1 to 55023. That look to be the right place, years, and instrument numbers so the prefix code associated with that instrument number should be "D". Combining the prefix code just identified and the instrument number of 8227 I get a registration number "D8227". This was the only easy part of the whole process!

At this point, if this was my family, I could place the order for $3 plus tax. I might even order some of the other documents mentioning W. J. Millican.

Wrapping it up

I will gladly admit that I really do dislike trying to find the transactions which took place in urban environment. Urban areas can be a really challenge due to issues such as changing boundaries, going from concession and lots to plans or sections, and street names being changed. Of course, how the registrations for Galt are recorded didn't make it any more enjoyable. It turned out that the note from Plan 470 which stated "SURVEY James Patterson" was key to finding William John Millican's property without spending hours looking through all the books. So pay attention to the whole page and surrounding pages for potential clues!

Yet don't give up when looking for the land records of those who had property in urban environments. It is a bit more challenging that those simple concessions and lots but just a rewarding.

Stop Following the Herd!

 

One thing I often see both novice and experienced researchers doing is taking the short cut of trusting the research of others. It doesn't matter if it is on a tree on Ancestry, the common tree found on FamilySearch, compiled histories handed to you by a relative, or even in published books. It is all fine and dandy to use other trees for clues and hints but trusting should be out of the question!

I'm going to highlight an example of why trusting other trees is a bad idea.

I periodically go to the common FamilySearch tree to see if there have been any changes to folks that I'm following. Recently I noticed an update to Moritz Schoenberger (LXSK-9NP). He isn't a direct relationship to me but he is connected to my tree as the great-grandfather of husband of a grandaunt. That's when I noticed that I hadn't reviewed his tree on FamilySearch and, based on the list of children and only one spouse recorded, there were errors and missing issues. So I started drilling down into his family to do the usual minor updates or to provide additional details that I've discovered over the past few years.

That is when I noticed something I didn't have for Emil Schoenberger, the son of Henry Schoenberger and Lilliam Fischer,...a wife.

Screen capture for the profile of Emil Schoenberger, son of Henry Schoenberger and Lillian Fischer, from the McKinlay-McMullen database on Legacy Family Tree.

This is the the family profile from FamilySearch for the supposedly same Emil Schoenberger as of noon (ET) on 21 Sep 2022.

Screen capture for Emil Schoenberger (LX35-QT1) from FamilySearch as of 14h00 21 Sep 2022.

Anytime that I come across a discrepancy between my personally created tree and those I find online I automatically assume that I'm in the wrong and I work to verify that the information I've just come across is accurate. In the case of Emil, son of Henry and Lillian, I have quite a bit of information about him by following him and his parents through the various United States federal census enumerations including the 1950 census where we find him with his parents and recorded as unmarried:

1950 U.S. census, New Haven County, Connecticut, population schedule, New Haven, enumeration district (ED) 12-107, sheet 16, household 184; digital images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Sep 2022); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T628, roll 3792.

So what about this Louise Joos that Emil is supposed to have married?

A quick check on the "Connecticut Vital Records — Index of Marriages, 1897-2001" site from the Connecticut State Library revealed that an Emil Schoenberger and a Louise Yoos were married on 30 Jun 1932 in Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA. Why don't I just look at the Connecticut marriage registration for details about Emil's family? That should answer the question right away. That costs money and takes a bit of time, especially for someone doing long distance research from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Sometimes the easiest path isn't the one that is possible at the time.

Just a second...if Emil was married in 1932 why did it say he was never married in the 1950 census? 

Immediately I knew there was something was amiss. So I checked what I have for "my" Emil in the 1940 Census of the USA. There I saw that he was recorded as a son living in the household of Henry and Lily Schoenberger in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, USA and he is single working as a grocery clerk.

So it was time to stop and look at this family of Emil Schoenberger and Louise Joos/Yoos from the beginning. On Ancestry I added this couple to my tree but didn't attach them to anyone else and I put in the information I was starting to find. One of the hints on FamilySearch was an obituary for her found on GenealogyBank from the 25 Mar 2005 edition of the Hartford Courant where it stated that she was born on 1 Nov 1906 in Germany and died on 19 Mar 2005 in a local nursing home. The obituary even included her two children, Robert and Margaret. Plenty of information for starting a profile on her household.

With those details entered in Ancestry started giving me hints to other records and the real winner was from the "Connecticut, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1790-1996" collection on Ancestry for the Petition of Naturalization of Louise Schoenberger who arrived under the name "Luise Joos" on 21 Apr 1930 at New York on board the S.S. Berlin. That petition included her children including when and where they were born. It even stated that her husband, Emil Schoenberger, was born in Bavaria Germany on 12 Sep 1901 and he arrived in New York, New York in April 1926. 

How do I know that this is the same family found in that Connecticut marriage index? The petition also gave the date and place they were married: 30 Jun 1932 in Hartford, Connecticut. The same information found in the index. 

Just based on that one document I knew that there were at least two people with the name Emil Schoenberger residing in Connecticut at that time. One who apparently was born in Connecticut, the son of Henry and Lillian Schoenberger, and the other was born in Germany, the husband of Louise Joos.

The next step was to find the household of Emil and Lillian Schoenberger in the 1940 and 1950 census of the USA. Since I also had the names and birth years of their children it was really easy. In 1940 I found the household of Emil and Louise with their two children residing at 66 Busnhell Street in Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut. There Emil is recorded as a cabinet maker. In the 1950 census I found the family still living at that address and Emil is still a cabinet maker. In both the 1940 and 1950 censuses Emil and Louise are recorded as being born in Germany.

1950 U.S. census, Hartford County, Connecticut, population schedule, Hartford, enumeration district (ED) 10-149, sheet 3, household 30; digital images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Sep 2022); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T628, roll 5302.

In Emil's Petition for Naturalization dated 28 Apr 1933 he states that he married Louisa on 30 Jun 1932 in Hartford, Connecticut and at that time only one child was listed since the second child had yet to be born. He also stated he was born 12 Sep 1901 in Kohlberg Bougern, Germany, arrived in 1926 on the Bremen, and is a cabinet maker.

As I discovered and entered in information into Ancestry about the Emil who lived in Hartford and was married to Louise even more details appeared such as his date of death in 1980 and even a copy of his obituary from the Hartford Courant on Newspapers.com. The details in that obituary closely match what had been found in the census enumerations of his family and even his petition for naturalization. I knew I was looking at the right person.

Some very interesting differences between the two Emil Schoenbergers can be found once one starts to examine and read the records available online in various places.

I'll now be off to fix up that common tree on FamilySearch and send a note to several tree owners on Ancestry about the error in their individual trees.

I leave you with this thought though...

STOP following the herd in your research!