Revisit - Library and Archives Canada RG 8, C Series How-To

More than a decade ago, I wrote a blog post titled "Library and Archives Canada RG 8, C Series How-To." Since then, the Library and Archives Canada site (LAC) has been revised, updated, and refreshed. After a colleague mentioned that they were having challenges accessing the finding aids associated with the RG 8, C Series collections¹, I decided to check out what has changed in accessing this collection of important Canadian colonial military records.

The first big change is that the topic page, "British military and naval records," is now in the new format. That's both good and bad — and the bad definitely outweighs the good in this case. The bad is that a lot of the good stuff on how to access the digitized material has been left off the new page. Fortunately for us, the old page is archived on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine at "British military and naval records (RG 8, C series) - Introduction and index."

Normally, I'd recommend using that archived page as one's guide to accessing the digitized images and use some of the links found on the new topic page to get to the images.

However, I wanted to see if I could find the material in this collection using the current Library and Archives site only and not go to the Wayback Machine copy.

In exploring this collection, I'm going to be looking for Alexander Fraser, late corporal with the 49th Regiment of Foot, who settled in Drummond Township in what is now known as Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. He is also my 4th great-grandfather.

The first place to start on the LAC site is going to be visiting the "British Military Records."C" Series [multiple media]" collection description page.

There is a lot of stuff there. Yet for us, the important link is found at the end of the Finding aid section on that page. There we find a link to a PDF file associated with "Multiple media (Electronic) Name Index - British Military Records. C Series (90: Open)" found at https://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf002/p000003718.pdf. In that PDF we learn how the name index maps to the microfilms with the digitized images of the old card index.

For Alexander Fraser, it seems that I need to look at microform C-11814 since his last name should be found somewhere between "Foy, Lewis - Freer, Noah."

That microform is part of the archived "British Military and Naval Records (RG 8, C Series) - INDEX ONLY" set of microfilms found buried on the current Library and Archives Canada web site. According to the current "British military and naval records" topic page they state: "Note: these links will be only be available until the images are fully available in Collection Search." How long that will take is anyone's guess.

Of course, since Alexander Fraser is a bit of a common name, it took me a few minutes to find my Alexander Fraser.

"British Military and Naval Records (RG 8, C Series) - INDEX ONLY," index card for Alex. Fraser, Corporal of the 49th Regt, image 711 of 6381; microfilm C-11814, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

That "C.4." found at the bottom left corner of the digitized card isn't a microfilm number. Instead, it is a volume number and we need to drop the "C" part in the next step in order to figure out the microfilm that holds the images of the actual documents. I also need to write down that I'm going to be wanting to look for page 15 in that volume 4.

On the old LAC site there used to be a table that converted the volume numbers to microfilm reel numbers. However, that has disappear from the current "British military and naval records" topic page but it still exists on the Wayback Machine at https://webarchiveweb.wayback.bac-lac.canada.ca/web/20220707190537/https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/loyalists/Pages/rg8-num.aspx. But using that archived page would defeat my purpose of only using the current system.

So, I'm going to the sometimes frustrating² Collection search system on the Library and Archives Canada site and I want to use the Advanced search feature found at https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/SearchAdvanced.

I'm not going to do any name searching though. Instead I'm going to use a few of the advanced search features.

1. For the "Collection", I selected "Collections and Fonds" from their pop-up list. It's near the top of the list.
2. Next I'm going to look for "Specific terms". The first one I want to select is "Archival reference" from their pop-up list. In the box beside it I will type in "RG8-I". That's an "eye" not a "one", and there are no spaces.
3. I also need a second Specific term so I want to click on the "+" next to the box where I filled in that RG8-I.
4. In that newly added line for Specific terms, I'm going to leave the Boolean operator as "AND", and select "Volume/Box" from the pop-up list just like I did for "Archival reference". I'm going to type in that volume number I found in the index card in the text box beside it but without the "C." stuff in front. In this case it is "4".
5. I'm leaving all the other search boxes empty or at their defaults. 

Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada Collection Search advance search screen with Collection = "Collections and fonds", and Specific terms of Archival reference = "RG8-I" and Volume/Box = "4".

Finally, I clicked the Search button.

If everything works out you too will hopefully see something like this in the search results.

Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada Collection Search advance search results looking for Collection = "Collections and fonds", and Specific terms of Archival reference = "RG8-I" and Volume/Box = "4".

By the way, if you are wanting to make changes to the search, don't use the back button in your browser. Instead, click on the "Modify search" button above the search results.

The first entry looks to be what I'm looking for since the reference states:

RG8-I, Volume number: 4, Microfilm reel number: C-2608

The other item that was returned in the results list actually states that the volume number is "92/1--92/4" and the search probably picked it because it has "4" in the volume number after a slash.

I recommend that you don't click on the image that is displayed as part of the search results. Instead, click on the title of the item to be viewed, in my case it is the one referencing microfilm reel C-2608. Clicking on the image will only display the digital object viewer. However, if I click on the title I get the viewer plus descriptive stuff I might want to use to create my source citation. In this specific example, the new(ish) digital object viewer will load the PDF holding the images from RG8-I, volume 4. Be patient, this can take a few minutes for the PDF to be displayed.

Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada Digital Object Viewer for RG 8, Volume 4 with page 15 displayed.

I was able to quickly browse through the images to find the page 15 mentioned on the index card.

I can now download the PDF to my computer, it is about 51 MB is size in this case. I can then use the PDF viewer on my computer to clip the pages I want to save as JPG images for safe keeping in the folder I have for Alexander Fraser on my computer³.

One question you might be asking is, "Why didn't I use the Collection search to find that microfilm reel of the index cards?" The answer is actually fairly simple. They haven't added those microfilms in a digitized format to the new collection database. So I had to use the archived microforms page for the "British Military and Naval Records (RG 8, C Series) - INDEX ONLY".

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1. At the time I'm writing this, a number of users from non-Canadian locations are reporting getting "403 - Forbidden: Access is denied" error messages when trying to access some of the Library and Archives Canada pages. From conversations I've had with others, this might be a side effect of some security settings that LAC has put in place to prevent AI bots from scraping the content in various LAC collections. I've asked for feedback from LAC to confirm that this is the reason.

2. The Collection search is often frustrating since, if we just use the basic search, we get way too many results back and we are just overwhelmed with the hundreds or even thousands of items to look at. Yet it is a powerful search system once we figure out how to beat it into submission and use the various search filters found in the advanced search options. By the way, I'm still figuring it out.

3. Yes, I back up my genealogy files on a periodic basis to the cloud and also to USB memory sticks. I also backup my whole computer every month to an external drive that I keep disconnected except for when I'm doing my backups. Hopefully you also backup your important genealogy files.

Case Study - Diving Deep into Ontario Lands Records

An intriguing question appeared in the Ontario Ancestors Facebook group I follow that got my attention since it involved a possible military and land record connection. These are two areas of genealogy research that can often lead to many challenges if you don't know where to look.

Be warned, this is a long post and covers quite a few digitized non-computer indexed collections to pull all the parts together. Yet it also highlights some of the skills needed to be developed beyond using the search systems on most genealogy sites.

Lorraine Foley posted:

Michael Cavanagh, born Ireland abt 1781 , was a soldier in France in 1817, had a child there, came to Canada 1818, and raised family around Perth or Huntley, Ontario. I have seen some military record possibilities, but without collaborating info, I don't know which one is him. I assume he was given land.

Lorraine provided some good bits of information but I needed a bit more. So after I posted a possible lead to a Sgt. Michael Cavanaugh who settled on lot 12 of the 9th concession in Bathurst township she replied back with:

The earliest I can find Michael is in the Richmond and Perth church records. The 1851/61 census state family lives in Huntley township. I am having no luck finding lot # for him in the land record sites mentioned by others below. 

That little bit of information about finding Michael in the 1851 and 1861 census enumerations of Canada West allowed me to start digging into the property records.

The first step for me would be to put the family "on the ground" and to locate them in the population schedule for the 1851/52 census and then find him hopefully in the agricultural schedule since that would provide me with a concession and lot number. But since so many of the agricultural schedules for the 1851/52 census of Canada West have been lost to the ravages of time I usually check the "Districts and Sub-districts: 1851 Census" page for Canada West on the Library and Archives Canada site before looking for something which might not exist. Huntley is in District 4, Carleton County and as we can see, the agricultural census is missing for the Huntley sub-district.

Sub-District Number	Sub-District Name	Microfilm	Notes
​24	​Fitzroy	C-11716
​25	Gloucester	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​26	​Goulbourne	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​27	​Gower	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​28	Huntley	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​29	​March	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​30	​Marlborough	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​31	​Nepean	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​32	​Osgoode	C-11716	Only the agricultural census has survived.
​33	​Richmond	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.
​34	​Torbolton	C-11716	Agricultural census is missing.

That is unfortunate but not unexpected. So on to the 1861 census since most of those agricultural schedules did survive.

I've already written about some of the challenges in using the 1861 Census of Canada West in my posts "A Challenge: 1861 Census of Canada - Agricultural Schedule" and "Missing images from the 1861 Census of Canada West on Ancestry?" but fortunately, at least in this case, I didn't run into these issues for Michael Cavanagh since I was only looking for the concession and lot details. However, there were other challenges (aren't there always!)

Screen capture of the results from searching the 1861 Census of Canada collection on Ancestry for Michael Cavanagh with the exact keyword of "carleton".

We find that there are several Michael Cavanaghs (with various spellings) in the Carleton district with their home in the Huntley sub-district. Only one stood out to me and that was the Michael Cavanaugh born in 1783 in Ireland since he matched the information provided my Lorraine. He was found in enumeration district number 7. However, to be on the safe side I checked the others:

• Michael Cavenagh born 1816 in Ireland is recorded as single residing in enumeration district no. 5,
• Michael Cavanagh born 1834 in Upper Canada is recorded as single residing in enumeration district no. 1 possibly in the household of John Cavanagh, and
  
• Michael Cavanagh born in 1833 in Upper Canada is recorded as single residing in enumeration district no. 7 apparently in the household of the Michael Cavanaugh born 1873 in Ireland.

There is also that Michael Cavanah without a birth year and birth place with a home  of "All Places (Agricultural), Carleton, Canada West. Looking at the image we can see that it is for the agricultural schedule for enumeration district no. 7 in the Township of Huntley in Carleton County.

Census of 1861, Canada West, Carleton, Township of Huntley, Enumeration District No. 7, p 23 [stamped]; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 16 Feb 2022); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-1013.

Here we find a "Michael Cavanah" with property on lot 27 of the 11th concession in Huntley Township, Carleton County, Canada West. This looked very promising and Lorraine was able to confirm that was her "Michael Cavanagh".

That covers the easy work which most of us can do once we are familiar with using any of the major genealogy sites and searching the various censuses of Canada. Now we move away from the usual collections and on to Ontario land records and the challenges of looking at digitized microfilms.

Since we can now place Michael on the ground on lot 27 of the 11th concession in Huntley Township we can see if we can find him in the historical Abstract/Parcel Register Books within the Ontario Land Property Records Portal (AKA OnLand) or in the Abstract index books collections in the "Land and property" category for "Canada, Ontario, Carleton" on FamilySearch.

I personally like using the collections on FamilySearch since I don't have to worry about if OnLand is open for business when I'm searching Ontario land records late at night. Here is the start of the page for lot 27 on concession 11 in Huntley Township.

Abstract index books, ca. 1800-1959, of Carleton County, Huntley Township (v. A), Lot No. 27 Concession 11; Registrar's Office, Ottawa, Ontario; DGS 8,344,621, image 274, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSTY-Z9FM-9 : accessed 16 Feb 2022).

It was fairly easy to find but it seems he received the land not from the Crown, like one might expect if it was from a grant, but from the Canada Company on 11 Apr 1835. He then sells the property to a Michael T Cavanagh on 23 Jul 1851...possibly his son?

Yet what got my attention was on the preceding page for the East 1/2 of lot 26 in the 11th concession of Huntley Township.

Abstract index books, ca. 1800-1959, of Carleton County, Huntley Township (v. A), East half Lot No. 26 Concession 11; Registrar's Office, Ottawa, Ontario; DGS 8,344,621, image 274, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSTY-Z9FM-9 : accessed 16 Feb 2022).

Here a Michael Cavenagh received the land as a patent from the Crown on 13 Oct 1836 and then he sells it on 9 Mar 1937 to Andrew Whelan.

OK, time to pull in the sails and try another tack. Can I find information about that patent which was granted on 13 Oct 1836 on lot 26? Keep in mind that a patent isn't granted until all of the required duties to be performed on the land have been completed. So it may be a number of years from the time a petition is granted until a patent has been received.

This time it is over to the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" database at Library and Archives Canada. I've learned that for names which may have multiple interesting ways of being spelled to put in the minimum number of letters in the LAC database search system so I searched on the surname of "cav" and the given name "michael"

Screen capture of the results searching the Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865 database on Library and Archives Canada for the surname "cav" and given name "michael".

Two results got my attention: the 1829 and the 1823 petitions. The 1848 petition is much too late for the patent granted in 1836.

Let's take a look at the 1823 petition found in the Upper Canada Sundries on microfilm C-4611 first since it is the earliest petition. The Upper Canada Sundries have been digitized on Héritage site of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

A search for microfilm C-4611 displays "Upper Canada Sundries : C-4611" at the top of the search results. Even better, almost all the pages have full-text search support. Searching for "cavanagh" gave me two matching pages: image 119 and image 781. Looking at image 119, in the top corner I could see "32254" stamped. This didn't match what was in the results from the Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865 at LAC. However, image 781 has "32921" stamped in the corner and that is a number we want to see.

"Civil Secretary's Correspondence, Upper Canada Sundries, October-November 1823," page 1 of the petition of Michael Cavanagh, p. 32921 [stamped], image 781; digital images, Canadian Research Knowledge Network,  Héritage (https://heritage.canadiana.ca/ : accessed 16 Feb 2022); citing Library and Archives Canada, RG 5, A 1, vol. 62, pp 32850-33396, Reel C-4611.

In this letter dated 13 Oct 1823 we learn some of the following details about Michael Cavanagh:

• he was with the 57th Regiment of Foot
• he was discharged in Vallencenes [Valenciennes] in France
  
• he has been in Upper Canada for nearly three years
• when he first went to apply for land he had four in his family left in Ireland
• he initially applied in Lanark to get his "military locations" but was told the "land was of no use there was nether rations or utinsial alowed for me an to go an get my family before I trobled myself with land..."
  
• it seems his family landed in St. John, New Brunswick and he has returned to Brockville, Upper Canada with his family
  

Alas, no details about if he was given land and where. Time to look at the next petition from 1829.

The microfilms for the RG 1 L3 reference are found in an archived microform collection on the LAC site. Most of the time I can't recall how I bookmarked it in my browser so I click on the "How to obtain copies" link found on the left side of the page where the results are displayed. There LAC has provided a link to "Upper Canada Land Petitions - Microform digitization". Microfilm C-1725 was easy to find and I clicked on that link.

After a bit of bouncing around the images I was able to relatively quickly find Upper Canada Land Petitions "C" Bundle 16, 1825-1831 (RG 1, L 3, vol. 109). That sort of information is supposed to be at the bottom of each microfilm image. The petition number is written at the top of the page in one of the corners. The first page of the bundle will just be a number and the subsequent pages will include a letter like "16a" followed by "16b", etc.

Here is the first of several pages from Michael Cavanagh's petition from 1829.

Upper Canada Land Petitions "C" Bundle 16, 1825-1831, Petition 16, page 1 of the petition of Michael Cavanagh; RG 1 L3, vol. 109, microfilm C-1725, images 758; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

This petition has all kinds of wonderful details for this Michael Cavanagh such as:

• he was a discharged soldier from his Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot,
• he was discharged at Valanciennes [Valenciennes] in France in 1818,
• he served in the Peninsula War,
• he was admitted as a pensioner of Chelsea Hospital with a small pension of 6 pence a day,
• he was wounded in the arm at the Battle of Albuera on 16 May 1811, and
• he now has five children to support.

It looks like he didn't get the reply he wanted from his 1823 petition and tried again but this time addressing it to the newly arrived Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada His Excellency Major General Sir John Colborne KCB. It also seems that Michael served in the same brigade under Sir John.

Only one problem with this bundle...I didn't see any mention of what land was being granted to him only "In Council 6th Nov 1829 recommended as a discharged soldier for 100 acres". But at least we know that this petition was successful.

So it was off to the Ontario Crown Lands collection RG 1, C-I-3 which I had looked at in my post "Ontario Crown Land RG 1 C-I-1, C-I-2, C-I-3 Collections on FamilySearch". In that collection I had noticed a number of bundles for "Military warrants" on later pages.

Looking through the "RG 1, C-I-3, vol. 124, Register for Military Warrants" found in the digitized collection on FamilySearch under "Military warrants (v. 124-125) 1799-1869 (indexed) Locations to discharged soldiers and seamen (v. 126) 1815-1822 (indexed) Nominal return of troops entitled to land for service in the War of 1812-1814 (v. 127) Photostatic copy of v. 127, Prince Regent's land grant to Flank companies militia U.C. War of 1812-1814 (v. 127A)" in FHL 1376096 / DGS 8346076 I found a Michael Cavanagh listed in the hand written index at the start with a reference to folio 47. Based on my experience that meant I needed to look for page 47 in this register.

"Military warrants (v. 124-125) 1799-1869 (indexed) Locations to discharged soldiers and seamen (v. 126) 1815-1822 (indexed) Nominal return of troops entitled to land for service in the War of 1812-1814 (v. 127) Photostatic copy of v. 127, Prince Regent's land grant to Flank companies militia U.C. War of 1812-1814 (v. 127A),"  FamilySearch, Images (www.familysearch.org : accessed 16 Feb 2022), R.G. 1, C-I-3, vol. 124, Register for Military Warrants, folio 47, Michael Cavanagh; citing DGS 8346076, item 1, image 79 of 744.

Above is the entry in this register for Michael Cavanagh. It is recorded that he is a "Soldier from the 57 Regiment of Foot As a discharged Soldier". What is even better is that it gives the location of the property as E 1/2 Lot 26 on the 11th Concession in Huntley. It was by the authority of OC 6 Nov 29 [Order in Council 6 Nov 1829] just like we saw in the bundle of his 1829 petition. This document ties the Michael Cavanagh found in the Land Petitions of Upper Canada to that property we found in the Abstract index books.

But we can't stop there since it gives a number for the warrant: T 20.

With a little bit of trial and error (how FamilySearch labels their collections can be a trial at times) I found the warrant in "Military warrants (v. 111-112) bundle A10-Z12, 1823-1829" (FHL 1376008 / DGS 8346063) under "R.G. 1, C-I-3, Vol. 112, Military Warrants, Bundle A19-Z21" starting at image 1294.

"Military warrants (v. 111-112) bundle A10-Z12, 1823-1829,"  FamilySearch, Images (www.familysearch.org : accessed 16 Feb 2022), R.G. 1, C-I-3, vol. 112, Military Warrants, bundle A19-Z21, Warrant T20, Michael Cavanagh; citing DGS 8346063, item 4, image 1294 of 1350.

Looking within that bundle what do I see but a note from A Whelan...that same Andrew Whelan we saw in the Abstract index.

There is another place we can look for possible information about a property and that is in the Township Papers also found on FamilySearch within the Land and property category of "Canada, Ontario". There are actually two collection and both are labelled "Township papers, ca. 1783-1870's". One goes from A to H and the other goes from H to Z. What makes this a bit frustrating is that the index is not quite alphabetical by township name. So sometimes it takes a bit of effort to find the digitized microfilm for the township you are wanting. In the case of Huntley it wasn't too hard to find them and select "Huntley, North 1/2, Lot 1, 5th Con. to Lots17 & 18, 11th Con?" (FHL 1378112 / DGS 8346536). There I found the start of "Huntley Lots 26 & 27, Con. 11, Huntley". Within is a letter describing the issue concerning improvements made and confusion about who owned what part of the property. 

Of course, one might even look in the Deed books on FamilySearch for the instruments listed in the Abstract index books for the various transactions on the two properties on Concession 11 in Huntley Township which Michael owned for any additional insights into the property. 

Keep in mind that I'm just giving you the highlights of what I came across. Always read and then re-read all of the various documents, letters, and records for potential clues and hints as to where to look next.

The next step into learning more about Michael Cavanagh and his service to the Crown could be to look in the various registers concerning Chelsea Pensioners held by The National Archives (Kew, England). Some of these registers have been digitized and made available on sites such as Ancestry and Findmypast. There may be many Michael Cavanaghs listed but how many of them served in the 57th Regiment of Foot during the time of the Peninsular War? But I will leave that to you, gentle reader, to explore in your leisure.

As you can see, the process isn't always straight forward and we sometimes need to approach the research question from a different angle in order to connect the dots.

Online Resources for Your Loyalist Research Project

When trying to research your Loyalist ancestors the challenge is locating those key records. It is even harder when you live a distance from that archive, museum, or library (You have checked the online resources of that library near where your Loyalist lived?) that holds a copy of the files you desperately want to read. Fortunately with the Internet it is a little bit easier (although still a challenge).

One thing to keep in mind are the following guidelines as to what defines a Loyalist:

• Either male or female, as of 19 April 1775, a resident of the American colonies, and joined the Royal Standard prior to the Treaty of Separation of 1783, or otherwise demonstrated loyalty to the Crown, and settled in territory remaining under the rule of the Crown; or
• a soldier who served in an American Loyalist Regiment and was disbanded in Canada; or
• a member of the Six Nations of either the Grand River or the Bay of Quinte Reserve who is descended from one whose migration was similar to that of other Loyalists.

Here are just some of the online resources I use:

United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada

• List of Branches - Often the best place to ask for assistance is either the nearer branch of UELAC or the branch closest to where your Loyalist settled.
• Loyalist Directory - Besides just the list of known Loyalists and whether someone has proven their descent from that specific Loyalist you may also periodically come across the actual application form that was submitted (like what I sent in for proving my descent from Lt. Caleb Howe of the Queens Rangers).

Ancestry ($)

• UK, Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Registers of Soldiers Who Served in Canada, 1743-1882 - This collection consists of extracts from the War Office WO/97 and WO/120 collections of soldiers that served in Canada.
• Canada, Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835 - This is the Audit Office AO-12 and AO-13 collection relating to the Loyalist claims and cases heard by the American Loyalist Claims Commission.
• The Loyalists in Ontario -The book by William D. Reid "The Loyalists in Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada" publish in Lambertville, NJ, USA by the Genealogical Publishing Co. in 1973 is a well-known resource. Just be aware that there are some interesting errors in it where Mr. Reid may have combined two families into one in the listings.
• United Empire Loyalists, Parts I-II - This collection is taken from the "Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario" as compiled by Alexander Fraser in 1905.
• Old United Empire Loyalists List - This database is taken from the "Old United Empire Loyalists List" that was assembled by the Centennial Committee.
• Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, Vol. I & Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, Vol. II - This is the well-known set of volumes compiled by Lorenzo Sabine. It contains biographical sketches of many Loyalists.
• Loyalists and Land Settlement in Nova Scotia - If you have Loyalist roots from Nova Scotia, this book compiled by Marion Gilroy under the direction of D. C. Harvey and published by the authority of the Board of Trustees for the Public Archives of Nova Scotia may be of interest to you.
• New York, Sales of Loyalist Land, 1762-1830 - Maybe your Loyalist ancestors had land in New York. If so, this collection from the records of Surveys and Maps of State Lands, 1686–1892, Series A4016, Vols. 7–10 and 17 by the New York State Engineer and Surveyor may hold some clues.
• Canada, Pension Applications For Widows and Family of British Military Officers, 1776-1881 - If your Loyalist was an officer and he died during or shortly after the war then his widow or children may have applied for a pension under his name. If so this collection from the National Archives in Kew will be a treasure trove. The WO 42/52–63 "Officers’ Birth Certificates, Wills and Personal Papers. WO 42/52–63. Records created or inherited by the War Office, Armed Forces, Judge Advocate General, and related bodies" records can hold attestations and details about when and where the officer was married, the names of children, and the unit he served in.
• Loyalists in the American Revolution: Miscellaneous Records - This database is taken from a number of sources such as the muster rolls of the 15th Regiment of Foot, 44th Regiment of Foot, 47th Regiment of Foot and  48th Regiment of Foot, 1763; list of men in Sir John Johnston's Brigade; men from the Turloch Militia who Joined Kings Royal Rangers of New York and Butler's Rangers; and the 1778 List of men From Pennsylvania who joined the British Army.
• Canada, Records of British Military Headquarters, 1775-1856 - This database is from WO 28/2–10, 268–269, 303–317 and is the records of the Armed Forces from commands, headquarters, regiments and corps.
• Ontarian families: genealogies of United-Empire-Loyalist and other pioneer families of Upper Canada - This book by Edward Marion Chadwick was published in 1894 and has, as the title indicates, genealogies of various families that settled in Upper Canada.

Library and Archives Canada

LAC has a page describing the various fonds available both onsite and online that can aid in locating information on your Loyalist Ancestor. The following online collections may save you a trip to Ottawa (although it is a very nice city if I do say so myself).

• Land Petitions of Lower Canada, (1764-1841) - Did your Loyalist ancestor settle in Lower Canada (Quebec) or were they an early settler in what later became Upper Canada (Ontario)? Then they may have petitioned for land as a Loyalist.
• Land Petitions of Upper Canada, (1763-1865) - After 1791 the Colony of Quebec was separated into Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Quebec) Canada. This database is an index to the land petitions of Upper Canada. In my post "Upper Canada Land Petitions at LAC" I wrote about how to use this database to look for the petitions in the Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) digitized microfilm.
• Upper Canada Sundries - The Upper Canada Sundries consists of letters, petitions, reports, returns and schedules, certificates, accounts, warrants, legal opinions, instructions and regulations, proclamations and other documents received by the Civil Secretary of Upper Canada, 1791-1841. This collection housed on Canadiana.ca's Heritage site unfortunately doesn't have a name index but it can be worth looking through. Lorine McGinnis Schulz has written about using this set of digitized microfilms in her blog post "12 Months of Finding Ancestors: Upper Canada Sundries (Part 3 of a 12 Part Series)"
• Heir and Devisee Commission - The Heir and Devisee Commission was established by provincial statute in 1797 to clarify the titles to lands in Upper Canada which had been granted before the provision was made, in 1795, for the issuance of patent deeds on Crown Grants. In The Olive Tree Genealogy blog Lorine McGinnis Schulz has written a number of very useful articles on how to search the Heir and Devisee Commission digitized microfilms. As part of her work she has created a list of what volumes are really on the specific microfilms.
• Loyalists in the Maritimes — Ward Chipman Muster Master's Office, 1777–1785 - This searchable database includes recordss that refer mostly to Loyalists who eventually settled in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. They include references to wives and children of Loyalists, some soldiers of British regiments and black members (slaves or free individuals) of Loyalist regiments.
• British Military and Naval Records (RG 8, C Series) - The defense of Canada was primarily the responsibility of British military and naval forces from the early 1700s to 1871. This collection consists of index cards and documents that have details on the various regiments and naval units that were in Canada from that time. It isn't a searchable database so I would recommend you check out my post "Library and Archives Canada RG 8, C Series How-To" on how to look through this collection.
• Black Loyalist Refugees, 1782-1807- Port Roseway Associates - This database includes the 1,498 references to the Muster Book of Free Blacks who settled in Birchtown held at Library and Archives Canada.

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

"Wallace Hale's Fort Havoc" collections are an amazing set of documents compiled by R. Wallace Hale that he has made available via the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick web site. Of particular interest to Loyalist researchers are the following starting pages:

• Loyalist Reference Documents 
• Loyalist Reference Text

Nova Scotia Archives

Until 1874 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were one colony. New Brunswick was split off from Nova Scotia when the large influx of Loyalists leaving the thirteen colonies of what became the United States of America when the British lost the war and many of those Loyalists settled in Parrtown. If you have any New Brunswick Loyalist ancestors then checking the records at the Nova Scotia Archives needs to be done.

• Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800 - Volumes 1-25, the surviving records from 1765 to 1800, have been indexed and made available online. The searchable index contains 11,464 names of people who received land in the province during that time period.

FamilySearch

New Brunswick, County Deed Registry Books, 1780-1930 - This unindexed collection of the New Brunswick County Deed Registry Books includes not only the usual land records of the settlers of New Brunswick (before 1784 New Brunswick was a county of the Colony of Nova Scotia) but also a listing of those that drew lots in Parrtown (later Saint John). The same list, although with some more details, can be found in Dr. Esther Clark Wright's book "The Loyalists of New Brunswick". You can find some instructions for looking through this collection in my post "Expecting only Deeds and Mortgages? How About a Will?"

Internet Archive

This is one of those great resources that just keeps on giving. Here you will find many out of copyright books that have been digitized for preservation. Just search for the keyword "Loyalists" or "Loyalist" and you will come across articles that may be only 2 pages in length to books with over 600 pages. You can read the articles and books on line or you can save them to your computer in PDF (and sometimes EPUB or Kindle) formats. Here is just a very small sample of what can be found:

• United Empire loyalists
• Claims of American Loyalists (Volume 15) 
• Petition of American Loyalists, 1778 (Volume 1) 
• The loyalists of Pennsylvania 
• Muster Rolls of Three Troops of Loyalist Light Dragoons Raised in Pennsylvania 1777-1778 (Volume 34) 
• The Loyalist refugees of New Hampshire
• United Empire Loyalists of the County of Dundas, Ontario
• Ontarian Families: Genealogies of United-empire-loyalists and Other Pioneer ... (Volume 2) 
• The centennial of the settlement of upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, 1784-1884 
• Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution by Lorenzo Sabine

Usually if I find a mention of an older book in an article on Loyalists I will see if it has been digitized and made available either through Google Books or the Internet Archive.

War Office files at Library and Archives Canada

Since I have been looking for documentation on several Loyalist lines I decided to see what collections Library and Archives Canada has available on microfilm pertaining to the War Office (WO) files that come from The National Archives in Kew, England.

The first step was to go the Archives search page on the Library and Archives Canada web site. For the keywords I entered War Office and I also restricted the type of material to be Textual material. The first item on the search result list is

War Office fonds [textual record (chiefly microform), cartographic material, graphic material]
Great Britain. War Office. War Office. 1713-1940. Fonds.
MG13-WO, R14028-0-6-E.

If you click on that result you are brought to the page that describes what is in the War Office fonds. So what are in these fonds you ask? (You probably didn't but play along anyways). Click on the "32 lower level description(s)" link and a new search is automagically performed bringing up a list of all the War Office collections available at LAC.

It is important to note that the WO files that are available at LAC may not contain all the reels and documents from the collections housed at The National Archives. You need to read through the descriptions of each of the series to determine what is actually available. For example, the "WO 71. Judge Advocate General's Office. Courts Martial Proceedings" series consists of:

• Court martial of Henry Procter
• Court martial of Joseph Corriveaux
• Court martial of James Glenie

The following is a list of the various WO files:

• WO 1. In-Letters and Papers (1755-1800-1840-1855)
• WO 4. Secretary at War Out-Letters (1757-1853)
• WO 6. Secretary of State, Out-Letters (1837-1858)
• WO 10. Muster Books and Pay Lists, Artillery (1814)
• WO 12. Muster Books and Pay Lists, General (1759-1839)
• WO 13. Muster Books and Pay Lists, Militia and Volunteers (1837-1850)
• WO 17. Monthly Returns (1758-1865)
• WO 24. Establishments (1783-1789)
• WO 25. Registers, Various (1756-[ca.1940])
• WO 26. Miscellany Books (1757)
• WO 28. Headquarters Records (1775-1856)
• WO 32. Registered Papers, General Series (1848-1913)
• WO 33. Reports and Miscellaneous Papers (1862-1885)
• WO 34. Amherst Papers (1749-1784)
• WO 36. American Rebellion Entry Books (1773-1799)
• WO 40. Selected Unnumbered Papers (1787-1814)
• WO 42. Certificates of Birth, etc. (1776-1881)
• WO 44. Ordnance Office In-Letters (1788-1856)
• WO 50. Ordnance Office Bill Books, Series I (1775-1778)
• WO 55. Ordnance Office Miscellanea (1740-1863)
• WO 57. Commissariat Department In-Letters (1811-1815)
• WO 58. Commissariat Department Out-Letters (1809-1920)
• WO 62. Commissariat Department Miscellanea (1809-1814)
• WO 67. Depot Description Books (1803-1892)
• WO 71. Judge Advocate General's Office. Courts Martial Proceedings (1763-1814)
• WO 73. Monthly Returns, Distributions of the Army (1861-1906)
• WO 80. Murray Papers (1815-1846)
• WO 97. Royal Hospital Chelsea Soldiers' Documents (1760-1882)
• WO 100. Campaign Medals (1884-1889)
• WO 106. Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence (1896-1910) 
• WO 120. Royal Hospital Chelsea Regimental Registers (1713-1868)

Some of these collections have been indexed and/or digitized by Ancestry and Findmypast. If the collection you are looking for isn't at Library and Archives Canada then check out my post on "Searching for WO, ADM & AO collections".

Additionally, some of the collections have been digitized as part of the collaboration between Canadiana.org and Library and Archives Canada. If you go to the Heritage site on Canadiana.org and search for "War Office" (use the quotes) various collections may be found such as "Great Britain. War Office : campaign medals (WO 100)".

Searching for WO, ADM & AO collections

When doing research on your British ancestors, especially those that served in the military prior to the Great War of 1914-18, you may come across references that point you to documents that start with WO, ADM or AO. These are collections that are held at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew in England. WO stands for "War Office", ADM for "Admiralty" (AKA Navy), and AO is the "Audit Office".

To search the TNA site to find where the reference has come from you need to go to the Discovery Catalogue. From the main TNA web site page click on the "Discovery - our catalogue" button to bring you to the "Discover our collections" page. From there you can type in the reference that you are looking for. For example, maybe you came across an index transcription in the "1861 Worldwide Army Index" on Findmypast that says that the National Archives reference is "WO12/8358". To look for where this index entry came from type in "WO12/8358" (without the quotes) into the search box in the middle of the screen. If everything is working properly the result for that search will be the "78th Foot 1st Battalion". If you click on that link you will find out more about that record set along with whether it has been digitized (and can be downloaded) or not. If it hasn't been digitized you have the option of placing (and paying for) an order to get what you are looking for.

Sometimes these collections are also held in other archives.  For example, the AO12 and AO13 collections pertain to the claims made by the Loyalists in the American War of Independence. They can be found on microfilms at Library and Archives Canada.

Fortunately some of these collections have been indexed and/or digitized and made available through sites such as Findmypast and Ancestry. Some of the collections along with which record set they came from are listed below.

Findmypast:

1861 Worldwide Army Index

• WO10 (Royal Artillery) pay lists
• WO11 (Royal Engineers) pay lists
• WO12 (Cavalry, Guards, Infantry and other units) pay lists

British Army Service Records 1760-1915

• Militia service records 1806-1915 (WO96)
• Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913 (WO97)
• Royal Hospital, Chelsea: pensioners' discharge documents 1760-1887 (WO121)
• Royal Hospital, Chelsea: pensioners' discharge documents, foreign regiments 1816-1817 (WO122)
• War Office: Imperial Yeomanry, soldiers' documents, South African War 1899-1902 (WO128)
• Royal Hospital, Chelsea: documents of soldiers awarded deferred pensions 1838-1896 (WO131)

Ancestry:

UK, Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Registers of Soldiers Who Served in Canada, 1743-1882

• Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Registers & Service Records, 1760–1882. WO97
• Registers of pensioners of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, 1713–1868. WO120

Canada, Pension Applications For Widows and Family of British Military Officers, 1776-1881

• Officers’ Birth Certificates, Wills and Personal Papers. WO42/52–63

Canada, British Army Regimental Rolls of Non-commissioned Officers and Soldiers, 1806-1892

• Depot Description Books [1768-1913]. WO67/7–20

Canada, British Army and Canadian Militia Muster Rolls and Pay Lists, 1795-1850

• Commissary General of Musters Office and successors: General Muster Books and Pay Lists. WO12/11960–11967, 11972, 12018–12033, 13295

Canada, Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835

• American Loyalist Claims, 1776–1835. AO12 and AO13

Canada, British Navy Ship Muster Rolls and Pay Lists, 1757-1836

• Navy Board, Ticket Office, and Admiralty, Accountant General’s Department: Ships’ Pay Books. ADM32/254
• Naval Establishment, Lake Ontario. ADM32/254
• Royal Navy Ships’ Musters (Series 1). ADM36/15490, 17229
• Royal Navy Ships’ Musters (Series 2). ADM37/5000–5002, 5631–5632, 5638, 5640–5643, 8602–8605, 8607
• Royal Navy Ships’ Musters (Series 3). ADM38/2294–2303
• Yard Pay Books. ADM42/2147–2202, 2233

A Hanging Question

It is amazing what can be found when you know where to look. Of course, the problem is knowing where to look in the first place.

But let's start at the beginning. I needed a break from doing some of my own research so I checked in on several of the genealogy related groups on Facebook to see if there might be some easy to answer questions that I might be able to help with. One question in particular got my attention:

James Mack, capital punishment solider, for slitting throat of a corporal, 1866 Montreal....assume he was hung.......how do I find out who he was? born? where? soldier in what army?

That definitely looked interesting. So where to look for answers concerning the event? I gave a couple of suggestions [edited for this blog]:

1. Search through the various Montreal newspapers that were published at that time. The Google Newspaper Archive has a number of those newspapers digitized and online. But since no exact date was given and the OCR used by Google is OK but not great that might take some time.
2. Search the "Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967" collection on Ancestry for a James Mack that was buried in 1866 in Montreal.

As for which army, since it is pre-confederation it would be highly probable that it is the British Army garrisoned in Lower Canada. Looking through the digitized version of the Library and Archives Canada RG 8, C Series collection might give some answers. If you haven't used this collection then I suggest that you read my post "Library and Archives Canada RG 8, C Series How-To" for a walk-through.

I then did what I usually do when dealing with an interesting event (and hangings are definitely interesting events) ... I typed the details into a Google search box.

One problem many people have when searching for information on Google (or any other search engine) is that they over think the query. In this case I just typed in the basic information that was provided:

"james mack" montreal soldier hang

The second entry on the search results page was titled "CANADA.; Execution of a Murderer--Distinguished Visitors ..." and was from the New York Times. A click on that link and up came the headline along with a byline of:

Special Dispatch to the New-York Times.
November 24, 1866

Looks like the right time frame so I clicked on the link for the high-resolution PDF of the article and there he was along with a description of his crime and also the unit he was with. [I'll leave it to you, the reader, to go to the article in question from the New York Times]

What about the Drouin Collection? What kind of search can be used to filter out all the people you don't want to see and hopefully not filter out the person you do want to find? Well, the search criteria I used was as follows:

First Name: James
Last name: Mack
Year of death: 1866
Event: Enterrement [and checked the exact box]

The first result was for a James Mack that was buried in 1866 and recorded at Basilique Notre-Dame in Montreal. I clicked on the image and even with my rusty French I could figure out it was the right person. There he was ... James Mack, a solder with the Royal Artillery, aged 24 years, that was buried on 24 Nov 1866. All these facts matched the article from the New York Times.

So where else could you look? What about a Google search for '"james mack" royal artillery 1866'  One of the search results is for the "The Lower Canada Law Journal - A Monthly Magazine of Jurispridence, volume II, July 1866-June 1867" edited by James Kirby, Advocate, published in Montreal by John Lovell in 1867. In the "December 1866 edition, no. 6", page 122 there is a write up of "THE QUEEN against JAMES MACK" along with some interesting commentary as to the possible reasons as to why Private James Mack committed the crime. There is even a write up in the 24 Nov 1866 edition of the Utica Daily Observer on page 1 where, along with the reporting of the hanging, even another tidbit of information about the crime (such as the victim's forename) could be found.