Burford Township...Lost in the Census of 1861 for Canada West

I've already written about one of the challenges with using the copy of the Census of 1861 for Canada West that is found on Ancestry in my post "Missing images from the 1861 Census of Canada West on Ancestry?". Recently though another challenge surfaced and that is one of a missing township.

In a post on Facebook someone was looking help in locating death records in Brant County, Ontario and had mentioned that the couple was married in Burford Township, Brant County and suspected that the husband, who died only a few years after their 1860 marriage, died in the Burford Township area.

The name being sought was John White and his wife Jane (nee Chant) Fox.

Being curious about the family I searched for the couple in the Census of 1861 for Canada West. To my surprise I couldn't find the couple in that census in Burford Township. Maybe the handwriting or the image quality was really poor so I searched just on the keyword "Burford" to see if I could find the start of the enumeration for that township. I got back all kinds of results but they weren't for a place but for people's names.

Something just wasn't right.

That is when my curiosity really took hold and I followed the rabbit down the hole.

I know that FamilySearch has the 1861 Census of Canada West and it is searchable but not all the digitized microfilms are viewable from home.

Screen capture from Census of Canada, 1861 microfilm list showing Burford Township found in the FamilySearch Catalog list at https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/179027.

There I found for Brant the microfilm which contained images for the town of Brantford and the townships of Brantford and Burford. I couldn't view the images since they are not available to see from home but I could still search that location on FamilySearch.

Screen capture of the partial results searching the "ONTARIO Brant (town of Brantford and townships of Brantford and Burford)" microfilm DGS 4107375 on FamilySearch for John White.

I could confirm that FamilySearch knows about Burford Township and a enumeration did take place in the sub-district. At least I'm not totally losing my mind.

I wanted to check again what Ancestry had, via their virtual filmstrip, for Brant County in their copy of the 1861 Census of Canada West. However, how Ancestry has stitched together the various microfilms doesn't make it easy in this case. Their virtual microfilm starts with the Township of South Dumfries, which based on how FamilySearch has listed the microfilms, is the second microfilm. It wasn't until I got to image 274 of 473 that I finally came across Enumeration District No. 1, Kings Ward, of Brantford in the County of Brant. 

What is interesting is that I was able to find the Agricultural Census for the Township of Burford starting at image 260 (of 473) on Ancestry and it definitely states that it is in the County of Brant.

I know from my previous research into how the various sub-districts are usually arranged on the microfilms for the 1861 Census of Canada West that the Personal census sub-districts are in alphabetical order followed by the Agricultural census returns for that district. So it would seem that Ancestry got the order of microfilms mixed up. That is an annoyance but not too many folks manually search the images for names...but there are enough of us.

So I went to the end of Ancestry's virtual microfilm for Brant and the last image, 473, was for the Personal census of Enumeration District No. 4 for the Township of Brantford in the County of Brant. No Burford Township. The next virtual microfilm was for Bruce County in Canada West and Burford wasn't found at the start of that filmstrip.

So I was off to Library and Archives Canada's "Census of 1861" page to search for a "J White" in Brant District. 

Why "J White"? 

That was one of the names returned in the results on FamilySearch for someone who was listed in Burford Township, Brant county in their results.

Screen capture of Search: Census of 1861 at Library and Archives Canada looking for "J White" in Canada West (Ontario), Brant District.

Not surprisingly I got "Nothing here matches your search" as the answer. It wasn't a surprise to me since Library and Archives Canada uses an index provided by Ancestry for LAC's searchable database for the Census of 1861. So if we can't find the name on Ancestry it is highly unlikely that we will be able to find the name using LAC's database.

Fortunately there is a workaround to view these Census of 1861 images on the Library and Archives Canada site.

On Ancestry the last image on their virtual filmstrip for Brant County had the URL of "https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1570/images/4107375_00419". That URL actually holds a clue I can use. With the numbers after the "image" part: "4107375_00419" I can build my own URL to access the images on LAC. I just need to add those number to the end of "https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1861&op=img&id=" (without the quotes) and paste it into my browser. That should get me to the same image on Library and Archives Canada which we found on Ancestry. That newly constructed URL is "https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1861&op=img&id=4107375_00419" (without the quotes).

When I plunked that URL into my browser I did indeed get the same image I saw on Ancestry. On Ancestry the page number was stamped in the upper right corner and it said "68".

So I started incrementing the last 3 digits going from 419 to 420 to 421, etc. I was hoping to see Burford Township. However, instead I on image 421 it was still in Brantford Township with page number "69" stamped in the corner. Um...69? It looks like we have a real problem. Not only is Burford Township not on Ancestry in this census but there may be missing pages for Enumeration District No. 4 for the Township of Brantford in the County of Brant.

As I kept incrementing that image number on LAC I also found Enumeration District No. 5 for the Township of Brantford in the County of Brant. Then it was Enumeration District No. 6 in the same township. So I decided to try to see if Ancestry might have any of these images just misfiled. So I took the "4107375_00421" number and replaced the "4107375_00419" in Ancestry's URL. Ancestry gave me the "We’re sorry, this page is temporarily unavailable." error. So it looks like Ancestry is missing several Enumeration Districts (different from the District/County) and a Sub-district from this microfilm.

When I got to image 573 on LAC I finally came across the image I always like to find. 

Census of 1861, Canada West, Brant County, sub-district list; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 6 Apr 2022); citing image ID 4107375_00573.

This is the page with the list of sub-districts enumerated in a district. According to this list found on the LAC microfilm there is definitely a Burford Township and it has 113 pages.

A few pages further on I came across the first set of pages of the elusive enumeration of the Township of Burford in the 1861 Census of Canada West.

Census of 1861, Canada West, Brant County, Burford Township, Enumeration District 1, p 1; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 6 Apr 2022); citing image ID 4107375_00576.

It turns out that the last census image on that microfilm is image 813 which the second half of the stamped page 113 for Enumeration District No. 3 of Burford Township in the County of Brant.

So for those attempting to find their family residing in Burford in the 1861 Census of Canada West it becomes a bit trickier than just typing a name into Ancestry and clicking search. Here are the general steps I would take:

1. Find the person in the searchable index on FamilySearch but restricting the search to DGS 4107375, the digital microfilm number found on FamilySearch, like I did here:

Screen capture of search results and search query on FamilySearch for "J White" in DGS 4107375.

2. View the record for the person that is of interest. It is important to view the record since there are key details we need that are found in the "Cite This Record" section and elsewhere in the record.

Screen capture of the Record Screen for J White found in Burford, Brant, Ontario, Canada born 1834 found in the "Canada, Ontario Census, 1861" database on FamilySearch.

3. In the transcribed section write down the Enumeration District. There are three enumerations districts for Burford Township so it makes it a bit easier if you know the enumeration district number.

4. From the "Cite This Record" section record the page number and possibly even the line number.

5. With that information you can jump to the start of the correct Enumeration District (ED) on the Library and Archives Canada image site. The URL for the starting image for each ED is as follows

• ED 1: https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1861&op=img&id=4107375_00576
• ED 2: https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1861&op=img&id=4107375_00696
• ED 3: https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1861&op=img&id=4107375_00728

Then it is just incrementing those last few digits until you get to the right page. The page numbers in the FamilySearch information are not those stamped page numbers in the upper right. FamilySearch is referencing the hand written numbers found in the top corner. These numbers may be a little faint at times.

By the way, there are actually two images for each "page". The first image covers questions 1 to 36 and the next image has the responses for questions 37 to 60. So to see the next group of families you would have to increment the number by two, e.g. "00576" to "00578". Once you get the hang of doing this it isn't too painful. Pay attention to the Enumeration District number at the top of the page to make sure that you are actually looking in the right place.

I've flagged this issue to Ancestry's attention but I have no idea when it will be corrected and then when the corrected index will be sent to LAC.

UPDATE - 9 Apr 2022

Library and Archives Canada is aware of this issue and it even appears in the "Issues about this census and this database" section on their Census of 1861 page. Thank you to one of my readers, Lois, for bringing this to my attention.

However, that notice is outdated since the pages and sub-districts I've covered in this post are available as images on the Library and Archives Canada site. The issue is now in the indexing of the names. Yet many of the Family History Centers (FHC) are still closed throughout Canada. Also, unless an FHC has the microfilms available on premise we cannot order in the microfilms to be viewed since that is no longer an option and many of the digitized reels for this census can only be viewed at an FHC...which may not have reopened yet due to the pandemic restrictions and out of an abundance of caution.