A fellow researcher sent me something similar to the text below concerning looking up the images on FamilySearch for the 1851/52 Census which took place in Canada East, Canada West, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick:
I am researching in Family Search and all the 1851 Canada Census records. Yet all of the records for John Lane results in “No Image Available”. Am I looking in the wrong area of Family Search to find the images so I can see the information? Is there something else I should be doing?
This was an interesting question since many of us have access to Ancestry, Findmypast, or MyHeritage where the images of at least the first page with the names can be found. However, those are all commercial pay sites and not everyone has access to those resources from home. So what can we do?
With a little bit of work on our part we can combine two free sites, FamilySearch and Library and Archives Canada, to achieve the same end result.
But why use two sites when one can just use the LAC 1851 Census of Canada search page? Honestly, the census search system on LAC is, I think the polite word would be, "lacking". Their search system doesn't take in account name various spellings of a name like the other genealogy sites and the only wildcard character available is '*'. So it makes searching just a bit of a challenge. Additionally, and if I'm mistaken please someone correct me, the current index comes from the original Ancestry indexes before people submitted corrections for any questionable transcriptions.
To search just the "Canada Census, 1851" on FamilySearch go to the search page at https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1325192.
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| Screen capture of the FamilySearch Canada Census, 1851 search page with More Options selected and John Lane born in 1811 in Ireland filled in. |
On that screen click the "More Options" button so that additional details such as where someone was born can be included up front. In this case I'm looking for a John Lane born in Ireland in 1811.
As an aside and before anyone asks, as far as I am aware I'm not related to this family. I'm just using him as an example.
A whole bunch of John Lane's appeared in the search results since I didn't give an end date for his birth year but the one I'm looking for is the John Lane residing in Otonabee, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. When I click on his record I get the following details:
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| Screen capture of the Family Search Canada Census, 1851 page for John Lane born 1811 in Ireland and residing in Otonabee, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. |
As we can see in the upper left corner it states "No Image Available". But in the details section there are actually some important pieces of information we can use to search for the census image he can be found on in the 1851/52 census of Canada using the LAC Census of 1851 search page. We need to record the following from this FamilySearch page:
- District Number
- Sub-District Number
- Page
Since this census took place is before there was a Dominion of Canada we also need to record the province and that we can get from the "Event Place (Original)". Note that we're not writing down his name or age. They aren't important in the search we will be doing on the LAC page.
So for this John Lane we need to write down:
- District Number: 30
- Sub-District Number: 295
- Page: 79
- Province: Canada West (Ontario)
One gotcha which you might notice later on the LAC Census of 1851 search page is that FamilySearch lists the Sub-District Number and then the District Number while the LAC search page asks for the District Number and then the Sub-District Number. So if you are doing this either late at night or before your first cup of caffeine in the morning you just might do like I've done in the past and mix up the order of the District and Sub-District numbers.
The next step is to go to the Library and Archives Canada search page for the Census of 1851 at https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1851/Pages/1851.aspx. If you haven't used the LAC 1851 Census before, please take the time to read the various items listed in the Table of Contents on the main census page for 1851 so you have a basic understanding of this census.
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| Screen Capture of Library and Archives Canada "Search: Census of 1851" page searching for District Number 30, Sub-District 295, Page 79 in Canada West (Ontario). |
The first step once you get to the "Search: Census of 1851" page is to click on the "Hide/Show Advanced Search Options" link so that the District, Sub-District, and Page Number search options are available.
As you can see in the screen capture I've already filled in the Province, District Number, Sub-District Number, and Page Number search boxes. Make sure that the District and Sub-District Numbers go in the Number boxes and not the Name boxes (yes, I've done that way too many times!)
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| Screen Capture of Library and Archives Canada "Search: Census of 1851" search results for District Number 30, Sub-District 295, Page 79 in Canada West (Ontario). |
There will probably be around 50 results with about ten names shown on the first page of the search results. However, we don't need to find the person we are looking for in the list since all we care about is the image of that page.
To see the page image just click on the JPG link for the first person in the search results. In this case it is the "JPG (Image No.: e002367651)" link
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1851 census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Canada West, district 30, sub-district 295, p. 79; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 22 Jan 2022); citing microfilm C-11748. |
If everything works out you will then be able to find the person you are looking for on the image which is displayed in your browser. You can right-click the image and save the image to your computer so you can look at it again without having to do these steps all over again.
However, don't forget that the 1851/52 Census is actually four pages for Canada East and Canada West. To see the other pages you need to do a little playing with the URL in your browser.
In the URL or Location line in your browser you see something like "https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1851&op=img&id=e002367651" when you are viewing the image. All you need to do is increment that "id" number. In this case we want to change it to be e002367652 for the images of pages two and three and then e002367653 to see the image of page four and the start of the next set of people enumerated in that area.
Once you get the hang of doing something like this it really isn't too hard to do.
If I want to check the 1851 (1852) Census records I use Automated Genealogy at http://automatedgenealogy.com/.
ReplyDeleteAutomated Genealogy is a good resource since it does link to the page images. However, at least for the 1851/52 census for Canada East/Canada West, the surname search isn't as flexible as that found on FamilySearch since a SOUNDEX list of names is not presented as an option. For example, in the 1852 census in Elmsley North, Lanark Luke McMullen is recorded as Luke "McMullan" while his brother William is recorded as Willm "McMullin" yet a search for "McMullen" doesn't find either if I use the surname search on Automated Genealogy. And unlike LAC's search, it doesn't seem that Automated Genealogy's surname search for that census supports wildcards to search for something like "McMull*".
DeleteThe other unfortunate challenge is if you use the split screen to view the image, at least in Firefox, if you don't set Firefox to view PDFs inline the image opens in another page or in your preferred PDF reader.
Yet don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the work that has been undertaken by the volunteers and I do use that site as an alternate resource. It just is no longer one of my preferred resources to search for records since other sites have stepped up their game since Automated Genealogy first came into being.