Upper Canada Land Books

When we are diving into the land records for what later became the province of Ontario we sometimes come clues written on the part of the petition giving the disposition of the request. Such is the case for the petition for land made by Sheldon Ward in 1825.

"Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1763-1865," digital images, Library and Archives Canada Archived - Microform Digitization (https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/microform-digitization/006003-110.02-e.php?&q2=29&interval=50&sk=0& : accessed 28 Jan 2024), Sheldon Ward, 1825, Volume 530, Bundle W 14, Petition 91; RG 1 L3, C-2955, image 878.

In this specific case we are interested in the line "Ent^d in Land Book M page 271" towards the top of the page

What is this Land Book they mention and where can we find them?

As stated on the "Upper Canada Land Books" collection page on the Héritage site hosted by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, the Upper Canada Land Books hold the "...deliberations, decisions and recommendations of the Land Committee of the Executive Council of Upper Canada." As such, we may find additional clues concerning the petition and what was recommended.

Yet with 41 reels of digitized microfilms where do we start?

Fortunately a number of the microfilms actually have shelf list near the beginning of the reel giving the Land Book letter, dates, volumes, and reel numbers. So that you don't have to keep looking for that information here it is in a table for you that you can copy and paste into a document on your own computer.

Reel ID	Record Group	Province	Book	Volumes
C-100	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	selections from Quebec Land Books A and B	18
C-100	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	A, pp 1-232	19
C-101	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	A, pp 233-end	19
C-101	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	B	20
C-101	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	C	21
C-101	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	D	22
C-101	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	E, pp 1-111	23
C-102	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	E, pp 112-end	23
C-102	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	F	24
C-102	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	G	25
C-102	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	H	26
C-102	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	I, pp 1-137	27
C-103	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	I, pp 138-end	27
C-103	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	J	28
C-103	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	K	29
C-103	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	L, pp 1-484	30
C-104	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	L, pp 485-end	30
C-104	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	M	31
C-104	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	N	32
C-104	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	O, pp 1-361	33
C-105	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	O, pp 362-end	33
C-105	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	P	34
C-105	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	Q	35
C-105	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	R, pp 1-428	36
C-106	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	R, pp 429-end	36
C-106	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	S	37
C-106	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	T	38
C-106	RG 1 L1	Upper Canada	U, pp 1-388	39
C-107	RG 1 11	Upper Canada	U, p 389-end	39
C-107	RG 1 L1	Canada	A	40
C-107	RG 1 L1	Canada	B	41
C-107	RG 1 L1	Canada	C, pp 1-350	42
C-108	RG 1 L1	Canada	C, pp 351-end	42
C-108	RG 1 L1	Canada	D	43
C-108	RG 1 L1	Canada	E	44
C-108	RG 1 L1	Canada	F, pp 1-651	45
C-109	RG 1 L1	Canada	F, pp 198-end	45
C-109	RG 1 L1	Canada	G	46
C-109	RG 1 L1	Canada	H, pp 1-651	47
C-110	RG 1 L1	Canada	H, pp 652-end	47
C-110	RG 1 L1	Canada	I	48
H-1976	RG 1 L1			Index: Finding aid MSS1802-1976
H-1977	RG 1 L1			Index: Finding aid MSS1802-1977
H-1978	RG 1 L1			Index: Finding aid MSS1802-1978

In this specific case we are looking for Land Book M and from the table we can see that it is on microfilm C-104 in volume 31

Fairly quickly the entry for Sheldon Ward was found on image 233 on that digitized microfilm.

"Upper Canada Land Books," digital images, Héritage (https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_mikan_205068 : accessed 28 Jan 2024), RG 1 L 1, Land Book M, volume 31, pages 270-271; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-104, image 233.

In this case it doesn't give us much more information. Just that Sheldon Ward was "Praying for a Grant of Two hundred acres of Land as a Settler. Granted One hundred acres".

The "W91" above his name references his petition found in Bundle W, Petition number 91 in the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" collection we've already found on the Library and Archives Canada site.

Other entries in the books may give additional clues such as the entry on page 270 for James Trotter of Trafalgar where it states "...that he has received a Patent for the west half of Lot No. 15 in the 6th Concession of the Township of Trafalgar, that he has a Family of five Children...". His petition could be found in Bundle T, Petition number 54 in the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" collection on Library and Archives Canada.

Some of the entries can be quite long such as the one for Peter McGill, Esq. His petition can be found in Volume 347A, Bundle M 14, Petition number 285 in the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865".

"Upper Canada Land Books," digital images, Héritage (https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_mikan_205068 : accessed 28 Jan 2024), RG 1 L 1, Land Book M, volume 31, pages 268-269; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-104, image 232.

So one never knows what they will find in these land books.

Also, for the digitized books on microfilms C-100 to C-110 we can do a text search.

Screen capture taken 28 Jan 2024 from Héritage of Upper Canada Land Books : C-104 performing a search with the text "sheldon ward" (without quotes) and seeing that the results include imaged 233 and 540.

Here we see that a search for "sheldon ward" (without the quotes) returns two images. We've already seen image 233 above. However, when I look at image 540 I don't see that name on either of the pages. We always need to look and read at all the suggested pages but there may be indexing errors.

Some of the other digitized microfilms in the "Upper Canada Land Books" collection are the index cards we used to find the the wooden cabinets.

Where can we go from here? I would probably look at the Ontario Crown Land RG 1 Warrants and Fiats Collections found on FamilySearch which I touched upon in my post "Ontario Crown Land RG 1 C-I-1, C-I-2, C-I-3 Collections on FamilySearch". One day, hopefully in the not too distant future, I will attempt to explain how I browse through the images in that collection to find the images of the indexes, registers, and warrants and fiats to learn more about the results of land petitions and subsequent grants to settlers in Ontario.