William Tegerdine, where did you live in Almonte?

Recently a friend and genealogy colleague reached out to me with a bit of a land related question concerning the ancestor of some of her cousins. She was trying to find a location of where her cousins' great-grandfather, William Tegerdine, who died in 1891 in Almonte, Ontario, Canada, resided so that the cousins could possibly visit where William lived before his death.

It sounds like a straight forward proposition. Except at this point, all we know is that William Tegerdine lived in Almonte based on the census returns and registrations of his children's births.

Here is how I approached this genealogy question... 

First of  all, I'm being a bit "lazy". I'm doing all this research from the comfort of my home.

Although we have the population schedules available for the 1881 and 1891 censuses of Canada, the agricultural schedules were not put onto microfilm to be later digitized for our use today. That means we need to look elsewhere. Possibly we could look at town or county directories or even the tax assessments to find out where he lived. I could have also re-examined the birth registrations of his children to see if my friend missed anything — unlikely she did since she's a good researcher.

Instead, I turned to the Full Text Search on FamilySearch to see if I can find any references to his name using the keywords "+tegerdine" (without any quotes).

There are 350 results from all the full text searchable collections. A few too many to scan through for me, so I filtered on the place "Canada" and then "Ontario". Now there are only two records to read. For one of the full text search results, it indicated that it was from the 1887. That looks interesting.

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Full Text Search results for "+tegerdine" for the year 1887 result showing instrument 5105 from the virtual "Almonte. Land Records 1892–1893, 1887–1889, 1889–1892" collection.

 

Fortunately the handwriting is not too bad to read but there was a bit to read and I'm doing this fairly quickly. That will cause me troubles fairly quickly though!

About half way down the instrument on that page, I came across the location of the property: "...composed of a part of the west half of Lot Number sixteen in the Ninth concession of the Township of Ramsay..."

Well that was easy!

I could now turn to the land abstract index books for Ramsay township that are found on FamilySearch. I could also have used those same historical books found on OnLand for Lanark (LRO 27). The only challenge with the Lanark County abstract index books on FamilySearch, at least for me, is that we have to know if the location is in the South or North part of the county. For Ramsay township, we find that township in the Abstract index books, ca. 1820-1959 books by the Registrar of Deeds (North).

But I quickly ran into a problem.

I couldn't find his name listed in any of the pages for Lot 16 on the 9th Concession. Maybe I had read the writing wrong.

I sort of did read it wrong. Or more correctly, I didn't read it all for a few words later it continued, "...and may be better known as being Town Lot number one hundred and thirty nine on Hope Street in the Cameron Section of the aforesaid Town of Almonte..."

That is an important detail. It also highlights why one should read the whole document and not just latch onto the first detail that may be of interest. And yes, I'm very guilty of not always doing that, especially in this case! I probably should paid attention to the computer generated transcription provided by FamilySearch. Those transcriptions aren't perfect by a long shot but they can help us when quickly glancing at a document.

There are several abstract index books also available on FamilySearch for Almonte. Fortunately near the front of the first two books I looked at the registrar has written which surveys or areas the specific book includes. I found that volume 2 states "Cameron Survey from 1 to 226".

Within just a few minutes I was able to locate Lot No 139 Cameron Survey on Image Group Number (DGS) 8636227, image 470 of 620 and there was instrument 5105 listed in the abstract. That's the same instrument that we had found by doing the Full Text Search using his last name.

Lanark County (North), Ontario, Abstract index books, ca. 1820-1959, Almonte Abstract Register Volume 2, p. 139, Town of Almonte, Lot No. 139, Cameron Survey; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-5SPT-V : accessed 9 Oct 2025); DGS 8636227, image 470 of 620.

What is interesting is that there are several other instruments that the Full Text Search didn't identify. For example, it missed instrument 5106. That's because the handwriting recognition transcribed his name of "Legerdine". That instrument is valuable since it provides the name of William's wife, Rhoda, so that I could confirm I'm chasing the right family — and I am.

If I had used "tegerdine legerdine" (without quotes) in my Full Text Search I would have come across this record. Curiously, using "?egerine" (without quotes) in the Full Text Search actually returned this error message on FamilySearch, "Sorry, we encountered a problem. The question mark and asterisk are wildcard symbols and cannot be used as the first letter of a search term. Please modify your search and try again." Hmmm, an interesting quirk in the search.

That should be it, right? I have a location of Lot 139 on Hope Street in Almonte, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada.

Except when I put in that address into Google Maps, it put me in the water. The address numbers on a present day map for Hope Street go from about 271 to 412. It seems like the lot numbers don't match the street address numbers. Sigh.

Looking at the abstract register page for the lot, I see that Rhoda Tegerdine still owned that property until 1907 so maybe the 1901 census of Canada would have a street address for me in Schedule 2.

Schedule 2 you say? Most folks only know about schedule 1, the Population schedule, of the 1901 census of Canada. The challenge with schedule 2 is that it doesn't have names on it but refers back to the page and line number of the head of household in the Population schedule. In my 2021 blog post "Finding the Concession and Lot in Ontario in the 1901 Census" I wrote about how we can use schedule 2 in our research. A number of the URLs pointing to pages on the Library and Archives Canada site have changed since I wrote that blog post due to the revamp of the LAC site in 2022, but the links to the schedule 2 PDF finding aids for the provinces still work (for now). 

In searching for Rhoda Tegerdine in the 1901 census of Canada I found her and her family residing in Ward 1 in the Town of Almonte in polling division 2 of sub-district A in the Lanark North (80) district on page 3, line 36 in dwelling 32 as family 32 (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=36646761&lang=eng&ecopy=z000076057). Using the schedule 2 finding aid for Ontario, I found that the images for that sub-district and division started at https://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1901/z/z002/jpg/z000076052.jpg. Looking for the entry in schedule 2 for the household that is found on page 3, line 36 in schedule 1, I found her address is recorded as "138-139 Hope".

Great. Not the modern address I was looking for. It seems that the lot number was still being used. But "138-139"?  I know about lot 139 from my search on his last name where I found the instrument and subsequently the abstract register page.

Back to the FamilySearch images of the abstract registers I went.

Lanark County (North), Ontario, Abstract index books, ca. 1820-1959, Almonte Abstract Register Volume 2, p. 138, Town of Almonte, Lot No. 138, Cameron Survey; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-5S5J-P : accessed 9 Oct 2025); DGS 8636227, image 470 of 620.

There is his name starting with instrument 5702. Yet another instrument missed by the full text search since the name was automagically transcribed as Legerdine. The computers aren't quite there to take over the role of a good researcher.

But we still don't know exactly where the Tegerdine family lived on Hope Street.

I next turned to maps. Keep in mind that I'm doing this all from the comfort of my home and I really don't want to have to travel anywhere at this point to look at material that isn't online.

I checked all sorts of maps, including a distorted image of a fire insurance plan for Almonte that I came across. No luck.

That's when I remembered that OnLand has maps associated with the Property search page. I've used these maps a few times in the past when attempting to locate an urban property. They can be sometimes a pain to use but in this case, it really worked out well.

After I selected Lanark (LRO  27) as my virtual land registry office on OnLand, I went to Property and then Map. Before clicking 'View Map" I clicked on the Area list and to my pleasant surprise I found that Almonte was one of the specific areas I could focus on. Going to that map I could search by the street name without having to worry about picking the right Hope street in Lanark County. I started typing "Hope" and it gave me the option of "Hope Street" or "Hope St". I chose the first and this map appeared with Hope Street highlighted.

Partial screen capture of the Ontario Electronic Property Index Map for Lanark (LRO 27), Almonte with Hope Street highlighted.

There I could see the lot numbers and even street names. For lots 138 and 139 we can see that they are basically on the corner of Hope Street and St. Andrews Street.

Finally I could use Google Maps to find the corner of Hope Street and St. Andrew's Street.

Screen capture from Google Maps showing the intersection of Hope Street and St. Andrews Street in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.

Not bad for about two and a half hours of research over two days. The first hour and a half was spent researching the land records. The last hour was trying to find an online map that had the lot numbers on it. Once I remembered OnLand did, it took me less than 5 minutes to get an exact location of those lots on a modern map.

My friend's cousins can now visit the same lots their great-grandfather, William Tegerdine, and family resided on in Almonte. 

Yes, I started with what could be called AI assisted results for the first breakthrough. That saved possibly days or even weeks of effort, but it took actual knowledge and research to put all the pieces together to come up with an answer for my friend.

Finally, this is a reminder to "Stop searching, and start researching" when you have challenging research problems.

Finding on the Ground: Northern Ontario Districts

For most folks researching their kin in the land records of Ontario they are dealing with the records in the counties where we have abstract books organized by township, concession, and lot. That isn't the case for those looking for the land records who settled in the more northern districts of Ontario. So please indulge me as we take a journey to those districts of Ontario and look at their land records.

Recently in one of the genealogy groups I frequent on Facebook the following query was posted:

Looking for some help to decipher the information in column 3 on this 1901 census, schedule 2.  It is for my ancestor William (Guillaume) Gauthier.
From what I can determine, it says " a NBay  b 39 & 40 in 11 con "
I assume NBay is for North Bay and 39 and 40 are lot #’s?  Is there any way to locate this location on a map?

The following image was also included:

Image of the 1901 Census of Canada, Schedule 2, Ontario, District 92 (Nipissing), Sub-district 1, Ferris, p 1 combining the header section of the page with and extract of lines 40 to 50 with line 43 highlighted with a red box; original source of image unknown; image of the full page found on Library and Archives Canada (http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1901/z/z002/jpg/z000085084.jpg : accessed 3 Feb 2024).

The first thing to note is that the enumerator has combined the instructions on how to record the information in column 3. In the "Instructions to Chief Officers, Commissioners, and Enumerators" for the Fourth Census of Canada 1901 we find that the "Place of habitation" should really just be prefixed with a single letter to indicate the sort of description:

• a. Name of Municipality
• b. Range or concession and lot, or cadastral number
• c. Street and house number
• d. Or other description

Here, the enumerator has written both "a" and "b".

So the entry in that column "a NBay b 39 & 40 in 11 con" can be translated as "The name of the Municipality, Township, or Parish is North Bay; lots 39 and 40 in the 11th Concession". But is that "North Bay" a reference to a municipality, township, or parish?

The top of the census actually gives us a few important clues to help us answer that question. There we find that it is Schedule No. 2 for the Province of Ontario, District No. 92 Nipissing, Sub-district Y, Polling sub-division No. 1 in Ferris.

1901 census of Canada, Schedule 1, Ontario, district 92, sub-district y-1, p. 5, top of page; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1901/z/z002/jpg/z000084890.jpg : accessed 3 Feb 2024); citing microfilm T-6483.

Looking at the top of page 5 for Schedule 1 of that same place we see that it is for the Township of Ferris. Why page 5? That is the page referenced in column 1 of Schedule 2. For the 1871 and 1901 Census of Canada, most of the non-population schedule pages don't have a name recorded but instead the page and line number of where the head of household is found on Schedule 1.

With all that information we can surmise that we are looking for lots 39 and 40 in the 11th concession of Ferris Township.

Using the Make A Topographic Map site from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry we can "Search by Location" and then "Select a Township & Lot/Concession" to plot that location on a map. I cover how to do this in my "Finding on the Ground: An Ontario Concession/Lot on a Map" post. The look and feel of site has changed a little bit (what website doesn't change over time) since I wrote that post in 2021 but the steps are basically the same.

So question two has been answered: "Is there any way to locate this location on a map?"

Yet why stop there? 

What about locating the land record transactions?

In my talks and blog posts I usually focus on the counties on Ontario. It's about time I also talk about the challenges with the districts of Ontario. Just so that we are clear, these aren't the early districts of Upper Canada like Johnston, Midland, Home, etc. but places like Nipissing, Muskoka, and Parry Sound.

For many of the lots in these district, in the Ontario land record books you won't find them referenced in the Township/Concession/Lot format. Instead they are listed under parcel numbers. So how does one take a known township, concession, and lot number and convert it to a parcel number?

For that we need to visit the Ontario Land Property Records Portal, AKA OnLand, and hope that the historical books they have digitized on that site will point the way.

For this case we will be looking in the Historical Books for the Nipissing Land Registry Office (LRO 36). For the more southern counties we could just search the Abstract/Parcel Register Books for the concession and/or lot and get a list of books to browse through.

Screen capture taken 3 Feb 2024 of the OnLand LRO 36 Historical Books search results of the Abstract/Parcel Register Books for Concession 11.

That is not the case here as you can see from the screen capture above.

Instead I will turn to browsing the First Registration Books in the Historical Books for the LRO. These First Registration Books "contain a list of first registrations from registry to land titles (e.g. Crown Patent or Crown plan)." I have found these books useful in translating the concession and lot into a parcel number.

Screen capture taken 3 Feb 2024 of the OnLand LRO 36 Historical Books listing for the First Registration Books.

Since we are looking for Ferris Township I selected Book 2 "TOWNSHIPS; D TO L" since Ferris Township should fall within that range of letters. On the first page of that book it does list "Ferris (East)" and "Ferris (West)" so there is hope.

On image 57 of 236 in that book I found the start of the Township of Ferris (East) for lots 1 to 29. So I just kept moving forward through the images until I came to image 80 of 236 and found the page titled "CON 11" in the corner for the Township of Ferris that had the listing for lots 39 and 40.

Screen capture taken 3 Feb 2024 from OnLand from Nipissing LRO(36), Historical Books, First Registration Book, Book 2, Township of Ferris, Concession 11, Lots 25-41, image 80 of 236.

There for Lots 39 and 40 we see written: "All Lot - Pcl. 2408 Nip." We also see that lot 41 references the same entry. That "Pcl" abbreviation stands for "Parcel" and it seems to reference "Nipissing". This differs from other entries on the same page that state "W&F". That little detail will be important in the next step.

But now that we have a parcel number we can search the Abstract/Parcel Register Book for the Nipissing Land Registry Office

Screen capture taken 3 Feb 2024 of the OnLand LRO 36 Historical Books search results of the Abstract/Parcel Register Books for Parcel 2408.

We find several results returned. One with the Township / Municipality labeled "WIDDIFIELD; FERRIS". That probably would be book we'd want to look in if the reference was "W&F". But we are wanting the "Nip." books so we have a choice, either the NIPISSING "PARCEL 02326 TO 02449" or "LEASEHOLD PARCEL 02401 TO 02600". We don't know from the information available as to whether William Gauthier owned or leased the land but I usually go for the non-leasehold books first.

Screen capture taken 3 Feb 2024 of the OnLand LRO 36 Historical Books of the Abstract/Parcel Register Book for NIPISSING Municipality Parcels 02326 to 02449 for Parcel 2408 found starting on image 152 of 326.

Fairly quickly I found the start of Parcel 2408 on image 152 of 326 from the NIPISSING "PARCEL 02326 TO 02449" book. There I could read that William Gauthier received a Free Grant Patent number 1393 dated 11 Feb 1905. Remember that to get the patent William would have had to have performed settlement duties so he would have been on the land for several years prior. In the first paragraph I could see the description of the land was for Lot Number Thirty-Nine, Broken Lot Number Forty, and Broken Lot Number 41 all in the 11th Concession of the Township of Ferris.

Unlike the Abstract Register Books where we need to consult the instruments to see the details, these Parcel Books have the details in them. For Parcel 2408 there are six pages of information describing how the land was transferred from one person to next...all available for download in a PDF for free.

I will admit that this was a relatively easy example for me to work through. I did make some assumptions that bit me when I was doing my first attempt at locating the property. One assumption was that I should have been looking in the "WIDDIFIELD; FERRIS" book. That was because I forgot to look at the whole page listing the lots for that concession to see what was written elsewhere. That rabbit whole took me about 30 to 45 minutes to get out of.

Just a heads up, some districts and townships may be a bit more of a challenge to research. In one of my presentations I make use of an area in Parry Sound district as an example of researching land in the districts. There I found that some lots were in the Abstract Register books while adjacent lots were recorded in the Parcel Books. 

So just be flexible when it comes to researching land records of properties found in the districts of Ontario.

Finding the Concession and Lot in Ontario in the 1901 Census

In several of my previous posts we've looked at the various censuses taken in Ontario, or what would later become Ontario, to figure out where our rural ancestors resided:

• Census of 1851 - Canada West: Searching with Ancestry or Library and Archives Canada
• Census of 1861 - Canada West: Searching and a caveat
  
• 1871 Census of Canada - Ontario: Searching
  

Unfortunately for us, only the "Nominal return of the living" or "Population" schedules for the 1881 and 1891 Censuses of Canada have been preserved. So we are out of luck with using them. However, we are in luck with the 1901 Census of Canada since both the Populations schedule, which we so often use, and the "Buildings and lands, churches and schools" schedule has been "entirely" preserved.

So off we go into delving into the 1901 Census of Canada looking for the concession and lot of one of my relatives who lived in rural Ontario. We will be using my 3rd great-grandfather, Luke McMullen, born about 1819 in Ireland as our subject. In earlier census enumerations he could be found in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada.

Much like the 1871 census of Canada where we first have to find them in the population schedule, we need to do the same for the 1901 census.

We are going to start on the Library and Archives Canada site's Census of Canada, 1901 page.

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census of Canada, 1901 page.

While we are here, take some time to look around the page. There are links to details concerning the instructions to enumerators, other places on the Internet where indexes to this census can be found (including but not limited to Ancestry, FamilySearch, Findmypast, MyHeritage, and Automated Genealogy), and which sub-districts may not have survived. One thing to note is that what has survived was initially microfilmed in the mid 1950s and the original paper records were destroyed.

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census of Canada, 1901 search page searching for Luke McMullen in Ontario.

Above is the search page from Library and Archives Canada for the 1901 Census of Canada with the details for Luke McMullen filled in. Keep in mind, that unlike the search system found on Ancestry or FamilySearch, the Library and Archives Canada search system doesn't make use of "sound like" or approximations in their search. If you can't initially find the person in the census, play around with the spelling of the name and also use the "*" wildcard in the search, possibly like "mcmul*" for "McMullen" and variants.

1901 census of Canada, Ontario, district 81, sub-district f-2, p. 2, dwelling 17, family 17, household of Louis Darou; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 20 Feb 2021); citing microfilm T-6478.

Only one result was returned and we can see a clipping from the image of the census page above. There we see on line 47 Luke McMullen is found in dwelling 17, household 17, that of Louis Darou, recorded as the father-in-law. Lydia A, the wife of Louis, was one of Luke's daughters.

1901 census of Canada, Ontario, district 81, sub-district f-2, p. 2, top of page; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 20 Feb 2021); citing microfilm T-6478.

The following details are needed to find the household entry in Schedule 2, "Buildings and lands, churches and schools":

• District: 81 (South Lanark)
• Sub-district: F
• Division: 2
• Page: 2
• Line: 42

Why line 42 and not line 47 where Luke is listed? Schedule 2 points to the head of the household within the Population schedule. So we need to record the line number for Louis Darou.

Now we need to go to the Schedule section of the Census of Canada, 1901 page on the Library and Archives Canada site. There we will find more information about Schedule 2 including links to a number of PDFs that will aid us in finding the digitized images of Schedule 2.

• British Columbia [PDF 1.08 MB]
• Manitoba [PDF 1.72 MB]
• New Brunswick [PDF 1.77 MB]
• Nova Scotia [PDF 2.25 MB]
• Ontario [PDF 12.4 MB]
• Prince Edward Island [PDF 720 KB]
• Quebec [PDF 8.60 MB]
• Yukon Territory and North-West Territories, and the District of Keewatin [PDF 1.10 MB]

For this example we need to open up the PDF for Ontario. Within we find the links to the images of Schedule 2. The order in the PDF is by district, sub-district, division, and then page number.

We can have the computer search for the name of the sub-district, if known, but often scrolling through the index, even one of 381 pages like that for Ontario, is just as quick. Here we find the various entries for Lanark South (81), Elmsley North (F) at the bottom of the page. There are two divisions for that sub-district so we want to pick the correct one. In our case it is division 2. 

A gotcha then appears...the page numbers don't refer to the page numbers from Schedule 1, Population, but to the page numbers for Schedule 2. So for Elmsley North, Division 2 there are 2 pages we might need to look at. Other sub-districts may have many more pages in Schedule 2 like we see for the town of Carleton Place.

We are going to click on the image link for page 1 of Schedule 2 for Lanark South, Elmsley North, Division 2 to see if we can find the entry for Louis Darou.

1901 census of Canada, Ontario, district 81, sub-district f-2, schedule 2, p. 1, lines 16-22; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 20 Feb 2021).

Scanning down the first two columns of that page we can quickly find an entry for page 2, line 42 from the Population schedule on line 18. There the place of habitation is recorded as:

b. con. 10 pt. lot 27

So it would appear that Louis Darou and, also by being in the same household, Luke McMullen reside on part of lot 27 on the 10th Concession of the Township North Elmley in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. We can now use OnLand or the land records on FamilySearch to find out more about the history of the ownership of that property. Maybe we can look up that location on a map and have a road trip.

But what is that "b"?

At the top of the page in the column headings it describes the code to use for the place of habitation:

• a. Name of Municipality, Township, or Parish.
• b. Range or concession and lot, or cadastral number.
• c. Street and house number.
  
• d. Or other description.

The enumerator is informing us that this is a "Range or concession and lot, or cadastral number."

How about a location within a town?

1901 census of Canada, Ontario, district 81, sub-district 2-2, schedule 2, p. 3, lines 1-12; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 20 Feb 2021).

Here we can see the clipping for Carleton Place. In this case the street name is given but not the house number.

The same information can generally be found on Ancestry in the 1901 Census of Canada pages. However, due to the way the images were originally microfilmed, the Schedule 2 images are often found before the Population schedule pages for the sub-district and division. Instead of flipping forward to the Schedule 2 images you actually need to go backwards through the images and keep going past the start of the Population schedule for that location. Then, hopefully, you will find the schedule for "Buildings and lands, churches and schools" for the place of interest. Make sure you pay attention to the top of the pages to make sure you are looking at the right place.

Regrettably, much like the 1881 and 1891 Censuses of Canada, only the Population schedule for the 1911 and 1921 censuses was preserved.

I sincerely hope that this series of posts about using the agricultural or other schedules has helped you find your ancestors on the ground in Ontario/Canada West.