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]