Ontario Assessment Rolls and the Militia

A little while back, someone posted a query in one of the Facebook groups that deal in Ontario, Canada genealogy. It was a simple question that was interesting to explore:

"I have a tax assessment roll from 1864 and along with it is a militia roll. Can someone explain what that is please."

Westmeath Township, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CV-25P6 : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 23, Militia Roll for Westmeath.

When a question like this is posted, I always like to look at the pages and even years before for clues. 

I just happened to realize that this image was probably from the assessment rolls made available in a digitized format on FamilySearch. Otherwise, I would have prompted the original poster for the source. I want to reminder folks to always state the source of an image in their queries so that others can also find it and other possible related documents.

What we find for the first page for 1864 assessment of Westmeath Township is a list of names, ages, and details about the property.

Westmeath Township, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CV-2R7F : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 1.

That is what I expected to see.

In the 1863 assessment we don't see those Militia columns. So what gives?

Also, what is that "First Class Service", "Second Class Service", and "Reserve"?

Over the past few years I've learned that understanding the law as it has been passed by the various legislatures can often answer many questions when it comes to government created forms.

In this case we need to look at "An Act respecting the Militia", 27 Vict., Cap 2. This act was assented to on October 15, 1863. There we find the definitions for those First Class Service, Second Class Service, and Reserve:

2. The Militia shall consist of all the male inhabitants of the Province of the age of eighteen years or upwards and under sixty, not exempted or disqualified by law.

3. The Militia shall be divided into three classes, to be called respectively first class Service Men, second class Service Men and Reserve Men : the first class Service Men shall be those of eighteen years of age and upwards, but under forty-five years, who are unmarried Men or widowers without children, and the second class Service Men shall be those between the ages last aforesaid who are married Men or widowers with children, — and the Reserve Men shall be those of forty-five years of age and upwards, but under sixty years.

We even find the exemptions in section 4 of the act.

Why, as genealogists and family historians, should we care about these details? Knowing which class a man has been assigned to can provide clues as to their marital status and if they have any children.

But why did we not have these militia columns in previous years?

Well, in section 6 the act states for service enrolment in Upper Canada (section 10 covers Lower Canada):

6. The mode of enrolment of the Militia shall, in Upper Canada, be as follows, that is to say; — the Assessor or Assessors for each Municipality in Upper Canada shall, annually, commencing with the year one thousand eight number and sixty-four, and at the same lime when they are engaged in taking the Assessment of real and personal property in their respective Municipalities, include in their Assessment Roll, the names and residences of all male persons in their respective Municipalities, between the ages of eighteen and sixty years; and they shall prepare three additional columns in such Assessment Roll, which shall be headed respectively "First Class Service Militia Roll,'" "Second Class Service Militia Roll" and "Reserve Militia Roll,"...

So it seems it wasn't until the 1864 assessments that this started.

What we also need to remember is that not every assessor recorded the information the same way on the forms. For the 1864 assessment of the Township of Westmeath, we've already seen that the assessor just wrote a "F", "S", "R", or a place in the columns and added all the men who didn't seem to own land to a separate list. 

For the 1864 assessment of the Township of Enniskillen in Lambton County we see that the names are recorded in the columns and there might be more than one name recorded for a property.

Enniskillen, Lambton, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1852-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-X3CK-3173 : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 31.

So make sure you pay attention to how the assessor actually completed the forms.

Additionally, depending on the assessor, there may be other sorts of information recorded on the forms, especially on the pieces of paper at the end of the assessment rolls. So always check the end of each year's assessment.

Finally, if you want to know which Ontario assessment rolls have been digitized by FamilySearch, there is a simple query you can use to search the FamilySearch Catalog:

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Catalog search page with titles: assessment, subjects: taxation, keywords: canada ontario, Availability: Online.

• Titles: assessment rolls
• Subjects: taxation
• Keywords: canada ontario
• Availability: Online

Just keep in mind that not all places will have the assessment rolls on FamilySearch. Many townships and municipalities still have them only available in paper or microfilm format at a local archive or genealogy or historical society. So if you can't find the township listed on FamilySearch then check with the organizations local to that township.

Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Death Registrations [Update]

Back in February 2023 I wrote "Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Death Registrations". Since then, Ancestry has made available the digitized images for deaths registered in Ontario in 1949 and 1950 in their "Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1949" (as I write this post it still states "1949" in the title) collection as a partner of the Archives of Ontario.

Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1949," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Apr 2024), Harry Dempsey, died 27 Dec 1948, Registration of Death form; citing Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Collection: Registrations of Deaths; Series: Registrations of Deaths (43-500); Reel: RG 80-8; Certificate Number 043124.

As we can see in the above image of the Ontario Registration of Death, Form 6, for Harry Dempsey, all the information about him and his death is found recorded on a single form. The top half of the form has all the genealogical information we crave such as the name, place of death, residence, possible name of the spouse, names of the parents, the name and address of the informant, and possibly where the person was buried. The bottom half of the form has the "Medical Certificate of Death" including when the person died along with the cause(s) of death.

This changed in 1949 when the single form was split into two forms: Form 15, now titled "Statement of Death" and Form 16, "Medical Certificate of Death".

Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1949," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Apr 2024), Catharine Aileen Gibson, died 27 Mar 1950, Statement of Death and Medical Certificate of Death forms; citing Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Registrations of Deaths, 1950; Series: 80-08-0-2918, Certificate Number 012230. 

Since the name is written on both forms you may come across a difference in the spelling like we see for Catherine above.

In my looking at the various forms I also came across a few tidbits and gotchas:

• On Ancestry, the image of the Medical Certificate of Death seems to come after the Statement of Death image on their virtual filmstrip. So, for 1949 onward, make sure you review and even download both of those forms when you are documenting a death of someone who died in Ontario. 

• For those of the First Nations in Ontario you may come across their registration of death recorded on a different set of forms for 1949. Note that these titles are the titles used on the forms from that time period. Form 33 is "Statement of Death of an Indian" and Form 34 is "Medical Certificate of Death of an Indian". The differences seem to be primarily in the details describing where a person died where it asks the name of the "Indian Agency to Which Deceased Belonged." 

• The counties for the 1950 death registrations are a real mess if you are attempting to browse the collection. For example, if you select Lanark County, you don't find any deaths for 1950. There is a "Lanark, Middlesex, and Ontario" grouping for 1950 but they are a hodgepodge of various counties with the first one being for Peel county. I did a search for "Lanark" as an exact place of death for 1950 and found deaths recorded in county groupings such as "Essex, Peterborough, Simcoe, Wentworth, and York" and "York". Until someone at Ancestry can sort out this mess, browsing by counties is a bit of a mess to say the least!

As an aside, those with a sharp eye might also notice that on both the death registrations I use in my examples we find in the "Cause of Death" section a set of numbers added in. For Harry it is "180-0" and for Catherine it is "776X". Those are the codes from the "International List of Causes of Death" and "International Classification of Diseases" which can be found at http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/. Harry's code is a tricky one since in 1948 a new revision came out, ICD Revision 6. If we use that revision it states he died of "Malignant neoplasm of kidney". That doesn't make sense since it is clearly written on the form "Asphyxia due to fire in which he was burned to death." However, if we look at ILCD, Revision 5 we see that code 180 is "Conflagration". That makes much more sense. So be careful when looking up those codes for those years a new revision came out.