Thank you to John Reid of Anglo-Celtic Connections for the heads up on the addition of Canadian records to the Full-Text Search on FamilySearch in his blog post "***** FamilySearch Experimental Labs Search of Canadian Probate Records"
What is really exciting for genealogy and family history researchers researching their kin in Canada is that FamilySearch has now included two virtual collections: "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" and "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020". If you have been following my blog for any period of time, you know that I have a particular interest in Ontario land records, and that is what the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection includes. So I'm really excited to see this addition to the Full-Text Search on FamilySearch.
So what is this cool FamilySearch tool and where do we find it?
On FamilySearch there is a not too well-known area called FamilySearch Labs containing what FamilySearch calls "experiments". These experiments are features that the teams at FamilySearch are working on but they aren't quite ready to release as part of the main FamilySearch site.
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| Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs landing page (accessed 29 Aug 2024: https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/). |
There is one experiment that quite a few people have been playing with and that is the "Expand your search with Full Text". This has many folks excited since it uses handwriting recognition (HWR) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to create word searchable index of various records. I've used this experiment to discover land records in Vermont that had my 6th great-grandmother's name mentioned in the documents.
To enable this experiment, click on the "TRY IT" bar under "Expand you search with Full text". That will bring you to the "Find Results with Full-Text Search" landing page where you can give it a go.
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| Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs experiment landing page for Full-Text Search" (accessed 29 Aug 2024 : https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text). |
Before diving it to this experiment, please take the time to watch the view that they have linked to on the page. It might just save you some frustration in your searches.
But since I know most of you won't watch the video until later, let's jump in.
In the search box, as a keyword, just type in a name that you are interested in and press search. In my case, I used the surname "Smith" as my starting place since it is a common surname since I wanted to see what collections and provinces were included from Canada in this experiment.
It came back with 12,262,190 results from various countries.
This is where the fun begins. And it is a good sort of fun.
First of all, note the search tips on the right side of the page in the search pane. We can:
- use quotation marks to find an exact word or phrase. Example "Henry Jones"
- use the + symbol to include a specific word of phrase. Example: +Judith
- use the - symbol to exclude a specific word or phrase. Example: -John
- use the ? symbol to find different spellings. Example: Jens?n will return Jensen and Jenson
- use the * symbol to find different forms of a root word. Example: Car* will match car, cars, carriage, carpenter, etc.
Next, we want to reduce the number of items returned. This is where the "Filters" come in handy. We can filter on the collection name, year, place, and record type.
I've been finding it easier to first filter by the place.
Since I'm currently interested in the records found in Ontario, Canada, I'll select "Canada" then "Ontario" using the Place filter. I could even narrow it down further to a specific county and then possibly to the township or town. For now, I'll keep it at the Ontario, Canada level. However, the ten provinces of Canada all have results returned so these virtual collections have been made up from many collections on FamilySearch.
Next we can filter the results by collection. If you are searching for probate records such as wills, estate records, letters of administration, etc. then you will want to select the "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020" collection. If you are looking for entries found in the land record copy books for Ontario like I am, then you are wanting to select the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection. As an aside, FamilySearch is treating both of these collections has holding "Legal Records" as the record type.
For the "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020" collection I have noticed one caveat. They seem to have only applied the handwriting and OCR software against the digitized records that are accessible from anywhere. If the digitized material still has a key above the camera in the catalog listing, it may not have been added into this experiment.
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| Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs Full-Text Search query for Luke McMullen in "Canada, Ontario" within the "Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020" collection. (accessed 29 Aug 2024 : https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text). |
From the screen capture above you, can see that there several items that have been found in the Lanark County probate estate files for my Luke McMullen. I searched for his name within quotes. If I already didn't have his file, now I can get it quickly. For Luke, when I was first looking for his file, I had to manually look through the image since the digitized index for all the years is still only accessing from a FamilySearch Affiliate or Centre.
Fortunately for me, the Ontario land record copy books don't have this sort of access restriction issue.
Looking for "Luke McMullen", I again used quotes for the keyword search, in the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection returned back 13 results.
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| Screen capture of the FamilySearch Labs Full-Text Search query for "Luke McMullen" in "Canada, Ontario" within the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection. (accessed 29 Aug 2024 : https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text). |
You might come across records where the person was also a witness to the transaction. That's something that won't be mentioned in the land Abstract registers.
When it comes to Ontario land records we will also probably want to then find the Abstract Register of the property mentioned in the returned records to see if there were any other transaction that this experiment missed. To do that, we just need to read those instruments copied into the land record copy books to find the township, concession, and lot. Hopefully you still remember how to read cursive!
Although I have focused on just Ontario in this post, I did a search for Charles Howe in New Brunswick in the "Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011" collection and it returned back a link to the image of his land petition in New Brunswick. I don't think I have this one in my files!
For the Quebec records, you might come across names in the "Québec, district judiciaire de Québec, tutelles et curatelles, 1639-1930" or "Lower Canada land petitions and related records, 1637-1842" collections on FamilySearch.
Just keep in mind that the handwriting recognition software has the same challenges you have when reading poor quality images or lousy handwriting. It won't be able to index those documents. But the doors it can open up for us will contain rooms full of treasure.
Have fun in your searches!