Recently a colleague passed on a message they received where someone was being frustrated with trying to use find and use the Upper Canada Land Petitions found on the Library and Archives Canada site. They were annoyed in part due to the changes that LAC has made to their site over the past several years, something I could completely understand. I provided a bit of guidance but I also thought that a blog post might also be helpful for others.
The first challenge is figuring out how to search for those Upper Canada Land Petitions in the first place.
There are two approaches.
The first is to scroll down the Library and Archives Canada home page to the "Most requested" section and, in the "Collection" column, select my favourite page on the LAC site, "A to Z research tools and guides".
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| Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada "A to Z research tools and guides" page with "petitions" entered into the Filter items text box. |
In the screen capture above, I've already typed in the "Filter items" box on the "A to Z research tools and guides" page the word "petitions". We can see only two results are returned, one for the Land Petitions of Lower Canada, and the other being Land Petitions of Upper Canada. When we click on the"Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" link, we are brought to the advanced search page of LAC's Collection search system.
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| Screen capture of Library and Archive's Canada "Collection search" advanced view page with the search limited to "Genealogy" and the Collection to "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865". |
Here we can see that two of the search boxes have already been filled in for us. The first is that we are only searching the "Genealogy" collections. The second, and this is the important one, the only collection to be searched is the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865".
Alternately, on the Library and Archives Canada home page we can click on the green "Search the collection" button that is so prominently visible.
That brings us to the "Search Library and Archives Canada's collections" page. Towards the top of the page we find the search box to do a Collection search. Before we actually do a search, we need to click on the Advanced search link. I've circled it on the screen capture of that search box found on the page.
Doing that brings us to the same screen we saw when we clicked on the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" on the "A to Z research tools and guides" page. Yet there is one more step we need to do.
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| Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada Collection search advanced search view with the "Collection" item circled. |
I've circled the Collection search drop-down box where we can select one of the many databases to only search in LAC's collections. We want to find and select "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865" from this ever growing list of topic specific databases.
It really doesn't matter which way we get to the search screen with the correct database collection to search. I personally prefer using the "A to Z research tools and guides" page in the hopes that one day it won't bring initially me to the search screen but to a topic page with details of what is available. That topic page does exist but we have to get to it in a round about manner at this time.
However, at this time we can just type in the name of the person we are searching for in the Upper Canada Land Petitions collection. We might also add in the place of registration but I often just start with just the name
In this example, I've search for my 4th great-grandfather, Alexander Fraser, and have included the word military since I know that he settled in the Perth Military Settlement when he came to Upper Canada.
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| Screen capture of the first two search results looking for the keywords "alexander fraser military" (without quotes) in the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865 collection with the Library and Archives Canada Collection search system. |
There are a few things to note in the above screen capture. The first is if you want to change the search parameters then use the "Modify search" button. LAC seems to have fixed the quirk with using the browser's back button and it not keeping the search details you filled in. However, I find that "Modify search" button always works so I recommend using that button to make any changes to your search criteria.
The next is that in the search results we see a question mark followed by a link to "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865". This is the link to the topic page associated with this database. That page is still in the old format and will be moving to the new look and feel sometime in the future. This page is very important for us. Not only does it give some background details about how and why the petitions were created but it also has the all important link to the digitized copies of the petitions found within the old "Upper Canada Land Petitions - Microform digitization" page.
Although the petition details can be seen in the result list, we should still click on the name to get to the item detail page like I did for the entry of my Alexander Fraser:
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| Screen capture of the item details section for the Alexander Fraser found in Library and Archives Canada RG 1 L3, vol. 421, p. 64a. |
Again we see a link to the topic page as the "Help page".
The important details for our purposes are found on the "Reference" line. There it states his name can be found within the RG 1 L3 series in volume 421 on page 64a. Just as importantly, that document is found on microfilm C-2739.
From that help page we know that we can go to the "Upper Canada Land Petitions - Microform digitization" page and look for the microfilm in that list.
However, if we are lucky, the microfilm might also be available for viewing from home in the "Petitions for land grants and leases, 1791-1867" collection on FamilySearch. I wrote "if we are lucky" since the microfilms from C-1609 to C-2033 in this series from LAC aren't viewable from home but only at a FamilySearch Center or FamilySearch affiliate library. Personally, if I can use the digitized microfilm on FamilySearch to locate the document I will. Not only because I find the FamilySearch image viewer easier to use, but also that the microfilms in this collection have been added to the Full-Text Search system on FamilySearch.
Regardless of how we are looking at the digitized images from microfilm, we want to pay attention to the information added at the bottom of the images.
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| Page reference information found at the bottom of the image from the Library and Archives Canada digitized microfilm C-2739, "Canada Land Petitions, Perth Military Settlement (RG 1, L 3, Vol. 420), p. 14b. |
Most of the time we find the key information that is mentioned in the "Reference" line from the Library and Archives Canada item detail page for the person. Of course, sometimes that information is missing or hidden. If that happens, check the images before or after the one we are looking at. We will likely have to leap through the digitized images to find the correct volume and/or bundle.
Then we will want to start paying attention to the top corners of the pages since that is where we will find the page numbers.
Fairly quickly we should be able to find the page 64a in the "RG 1, L 3, Vol.421" for my Alexander Fraser I used in the example. Below is the image I came across on FamilySearch since microfilm C-2739 is viewable from home.
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| Upper Canada Land Petitions, Bundle Perth Military Settlement, RG 1 L3, vol. 421, petition 64, p. 64a, imaged, “Petitions for land grants and leases, 1791-1867”, FamilySearch, image group number 8630352 > image 491 of 1130 (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H4-79VZ-P: accessed 3 Apr 2026); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-2739. |
Of course, the entry on the page that is on the fold is the one for my Alexander Fraser. Isn't that always the case!
The Perth Military Settlement is a bit different from other petitions in this collection from Library and Archives Canada since we don't find the individual petitions made by the potential settlers.
When it comes to these petitions, there are often several pages in the petition. I recommend that you save all the pages for a petition to your computer for safe keeping and so that you don't have to do this every single time you want to look at the petition again.