1931 Census of Canada - Initial Searchable Index

On June 1st, 1931 the enumerators of the the seventh census of Canada began their work throughout most parts of Canada. 

Jump ahead to June 1st, 2023 and the surviving information that was gathered, the population schedule on Form 1, was now available to all who wanted to take the time to wade through the images to find their ancestors. The release of those images didn't go as smoothly as hoped since there were a number of issues with the Library and Archives Canada web site during those first two days. By the morning of June 2nd, Ancestry had finished processing and loading those same images into their system so that we could view them, thus taking the pressure off LAC.

In just over a week from the time that Ancestry had first started receiving the images of the 1931 Census of Canada from Library and Archives Canada just after midnight on June 1st, Ancestry has the first public version of their searchable index ready for our use. Ancestry, along with FamilySearch, will be working hard in the coming weeks and months to improve the accuracy of the information extracted and to add more information to those indexes just like what we see for the indexes in the 1921 Census of Canada.

You can find the "1931 Census of Canada" collection and the associated searchable index on Ancestry at https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/.

Partial screen capture of the "1931 Census of Canada" search page from Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/ : accessed 9 Jun 2023).

In looking at the updated search page for the 1931 Census of Canada we find that we can search by name, birth year, where the person is living, associated family members, "relation to head", marital status, sub-district number, enumeration district, and gender. This index was effectively created by computer algorithms (AI in the marketing world) using Ancestry's Handwriting Recognition software to attempt to read what the enumerators had written down.

If you want to learn more about Ancestry's Handwriting Recognition technology and it's use in transcribing the census, you can watch their approach to the 1950 Federal Census of the United States of America, which was done last year, in their view "Teaching a Computer to Read the 1950 U.S. Census | Ancestry®".

Here is a screen capture from the 1931 Census of Canada on Ancestry with all the details open for a specific person. Yes, it is a busy screen but I'm used to it.

Screen capture of the web page from Ancestry Canada showing the 1931 Census of Canada page for Ontario, Parkdale district, sub-district 53, page 10 with "George Heryekaner" selected.

I chose this screen capture of "George Heryekaner" as my example of what we can see for a very specific reason. I'd already found him through manually looking through the censuses. He is my great-grandfather. But his name isn't "George Heryekaner" but "George Kaye Warrener". And his son isn't "Nancy" but is written as "Ronald Macgregor". OK, even I had a challenge reading the "Macgregor" part. The computer did do a good job on reading "Henriette" and "Lilian"...so kudos to our future AI Overlords.

1931 Census of Canada, Winnipeg, district 138 (Parkdale), sub-district 53 (Toronto City Ward 6), p. 10, dwelling 87, family 126, extract of household of George Heryekaner; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry Operations, Inc., Ancestry.ca (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/ : accessed 3 Jun 2023).

When I first saw George's name recorded in the census I knew that the computer would have a fit trying to transcribe his name. And I was right! Now I thought it might guess the last name as "Kaye Warrener" or "Haye Warrener" or just "Kaye" or "Haye". However, I was wrong as to what the attempt at reading the handwriting came up with.

If I hadn't known where George and the family was living I probably would never have found him in the index. The handwriting by the enumerator is, to put it kindly, challenging. Fortunately, just like many of the other transcriptions made of records by Ancestry, we can submit our own corrections to the name and select fields. I have now added my own suggested corrections to the transcription of the 1931 Census of Canada for this family.

Contrast the handwriting above with the penmanship by the enumerator in sub-district 29 (London City Ward 4), London district, Ontario:

1931 Census of Canada, district 127 (London), sub-district 29 (London City Ward 4), p. 1, dwelling 12, family 14, extract of household of Nathaniel McKinlay; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry Operations, Inc., Ancestry.ca (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/ : accessed 8 Jun 2023).

Here the computer had no problems reading the handwriting. 

1931 Census of Canada, district 127 (London), sub-district 29 (London City Ward 4), p. 1, dwelling 12, family 14, transcription for the entry of Nathaniel McKinlay; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry Operations, Inc., Ancestry.ca (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/ : accessed 8 Jun 2023).

As you can well imagine, this first public release of the index from Ancestry will have it's challenges. That is why it is still important to know how to actually find an address in the census and not just rely on a computer to do the work for you. I look at using our research skills to look for someone by address in my post "1931 Census of Canada - Success Stories".

So set your expectations appropriately. The computer can't perform miracles when the handwriting is not great. Yet having the ability to search by name for folks in the 1931 Census of Canada will allow us to deal with the low hanging fruit so that we can focus our research skills on those we can't easily find.

Have fun searching!