News about Canada's National Registration File of 1940

A few days ago I was reading the General census guide page on the Library and Archives Canada site looking for some information that used to be found on the old Library and Archives Canada site. I decided to check out the link in the Related links section at the bottom on the General census guide page for the 1940 National Registration since last year I heard some possible rumblings about Library and Archives Canada getting the material from Statistics Canada.

Before I go any further, I want to explain what this "National Registration File of 1940" is and why we have it. 

Sample questionnaire for men. Courtesy of Statistics Canada.

Sample questionnaire for women. Courtesy of Statistics Canada.

The National Registration came out of Canada's National Resources Mobilization Act, 1940 and it required all those who were 16 years or older, except for those in the military, in religious orders, or confined to an institution, to fill in a questionnaire. For us genealogy and family history researchers, we can consider this registration as a census substitute. In 2013, the Library and Archives Canada blog posted an informative article "The 1940 National Registration File" that provided details about this registration. Unfortunately for us, at that time it cost $45 to make a request to Statistics Canada to have them search for the file for a single person.

However, that may be changing in the not so distant future. 

Back in April 2025, the link to the LAC's 1940 National Registration page pointed us to the blog post.

Now it points us to a "Preserving the National Registration File" page with the following text:

The National Registration File from the Second World War is arriving at Library and Archives Canada (LAC). Statistics Canada is transferring the records to LAC in batches in June and July 2025.

We are working with care to preserve these valuable records and are temporarily pausing public access during this process. Due to years of use and the deteriorating nature of cellulose acetate film, this important collection is in poor physical condition. To prevent further damage, the records must be stored in cold storage at -10ºC. This will give LAC specialists time to develop a plan to ensure that digital copies of these records remain accessible in the future.

These records are a rich source of demographic information on Canadian individuals, even more detailed than census records. In August 1940, the Department of National War Services initiated a national registration of all persons in Canada aged 16 and older (with some exceptions). Newfoundland conducted a similar registration beginning in 1942. The resulting National Registration File includes approximately eight million questionnaire cards, which were later imaged on microfilm. The questionnaires provide details such as address, age, date and place of birth, general health, and occupation. For immigrants to Canada, the forms also record key details such as the year of arrival and the country of birth of their parents.

To make these archival records searchable and visible online, they must be:

• Assessed — we will assess the stability of the microfilms to determine whether they can be circulated without permanent damage and whether their content remains legible.
• Added to the collection — we will assign reel numbers and storage location, create archival descriptions and add entries in Collection search.
• Accessible — we will determine the best approach for digitizing and providing access to the files.

Thank you for your patience as this process moves forward. We will be updating this page with new information as it becomes available, so please check back regularly.

For those who are used to using the 1939 Register for England and Wales, this is our Canadian equivalent. It also just doesn't include the Dominion of Canada but also the registration held in 1942 for Newfoundland, which didn't join Canada until after the Second World War.

Before we all celebrate, make sure you read what LAC has written on their page, especially the "Due to years of use and the deteriorating nature of cellulose acetate film, this important collection is in poor physical condition." part. It is going to take some effort on Library and Archives Canada's part to figure out how they are going to preserve this material for digitization.

Also buried on that "Preserving the National Registration File" page is a link to the LAC Collection search entry for "National Registration File". If you have watched my talk on "Exploring Library and Archives Canada Online" found archived by Legacy Family Tree Webinars, you know that the LAC Collection search can be confusing at times but can also have interesting information buried in the details.

A few details stood out to me from the item page:

• There are 3064 microfilms in 16 mm format. There are two copies of most microfilms so we are probably looking at about 1532 films to be digitized. That's a lot of material to digitize!
• The original completed questionnaire cards were destroyed in the 1950s after they were microfilmed.
• It does not include the registration certificates that people were to carry with them at all times until the end of the Second World War. 
• The material is NOT available for us to access at this time. So don't even bother asking to see the microfilms!
• Once the microfilms have been digitized, it looks like they will be "Consultation 90 Open" courtesy of ATIP 2025-06-09 BR 439. That means no additional paperwork will be needed to view the questionnaires.

If you are curious about the instructions and the questions asked, I'd recommend visiting the "National registration comes to Canada" page hosted by Wartime Canada to read the National Registration Regulations Instructions 1940 and National Registration Regulations 1940 PDF files.

I'm really looking forward to seeing these completed questionnaires but I'm also going to give Library and Archives Canada plenty of time to figure out how to best preserve these microfilms so that future generations can use the material in their research. 

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".

---

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.

Legislative Acts and Ontario Genealogy

Over the past few years I've been looking at the acts that have been passed by the Government of Canada and also the Legislature of Ontario to help be better understand notations made on records, why some of the documents we use in our research are the way they are, and when the various laws came into effect or changed what we use.

For example, often folks state that the civil registration of birth, marriages, and deaths in Ontario didn't start until 1 Jul 1869. But where did that date come from? It came from "An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths" found as Cap. XXX (AKA Chapter 30) "Passed in the Session Held in the Thirty-second Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria Being the Second Session of the First Parliament of Ontario".

Clipping of the act title for the Second Session of the First Parliament of Ontario (1868-1869), Chapter 30, "An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths.

However, what many folks don't realize is that the civil registration of marriages actually started much earlier than that. Hopefully in a future blog post I will touch upon the requirement to register marriages in Canada West and Upper Canada before this act took effect such as "20 Vic Cap. LXVI - An Act to amend the Laws relating to the solemnization of Matrimony in Upper Canada" from 1857.

Why would we want to look at the acts. They are just boring and filled with "lawyer-talk".

Just a disclaimer, I am not a lawyer or a parliamentarian.

Let's dispel the notion that the acts are filled "lawyer-talk" at the start. 

I've read a number of the acts passed by the Parliament of Canada and Legislature of Ontario, and I've actually found them to be fairly readable.

They can be dry reading but the information contained within can help us understand why something might not be found on a form. Such as "In registering a birth of an illegitimate child, is shall not be lawful for the name of any person to be entered as the father, unless at the joint request of the mother and of the person acknowledging himself to be the father..."

Boring, yes. But readable.

Over time, we might even find the act being updated with additional clarifications that the lawmakers never dreamed of when the act was first passed.

So where can we find these acts?

For Ontario it all depend on the time period.

If we are looking for legislative acts passed prior to Confederation on 1 Jul 1867, then I will turn to
"British North American Legislative Database, 1758-1867" hosted by the University of New Brunswick. You can search on key words, filter by the province, and sort on the year the act was passed.

For example, maybe you are interested in reading about "An Act to provide more effectually for taking the Periodical Census of the Province. 30th August, 1851." found in 14 & 15 Victoria, Chapter 49:

Screen capture from the British North American Legislative Database, 1758-1867 showing the page for "An Act to provide more effectually for taking the Periodical Census of the Province. 30th August, 1851", 14 & 15 Victoria, chapter 49.

I can read the transcribed act and even download the images of the original act to my computer. 

For acts passed by the the Legislature of Ontario after Confederation, I will often turn to the Osgoode Hall Law School's Osgoode Digital Commons' Statutes collections. This is where I've found the annually published statutes and revised statutes as passed by the Ontario Legislature.

Screen capture of the Osgoode Digital Commons Ontario: Revised Statutes advanced search for "vital statistics" in the Title.

In the screen capture above, I've done an advanced search for "vital statistics" in the title of the Ontario Revised Statutes. It returned back 8 results. I can then download the specific act or acts to my computer as a PDF for reading for free.

What about the acts passed by Parliament in Ottawa?

Why would I want to look at those acts?

The biggest reason is that until 1930, divorces in Ontario could only be granted by an Act of Parliament. That changed with the passing of 20-21 George V, Chap. 14, "An Act to provide in the province of Ontario for the dissolution and annulment of Marriage", assented to on 30 May 1930.

We can search for these federal Acts of Divorces using the database on the Library and Archives Canada site: "Acts of Divorce, 1841-1968". Keep in mind that this is still hosted under the old LAC site so the URL will be changing sometime in the future. However, all that database will return are the names of the petitioner and spouse, a reference, a year, and a citation. That's good start but we probably want to read the act itself.

Let's take a look at the divorce of Clarice Sheppard from James Henry Smith found in the "Acts of Divorce" database. The reference is the "Statutes of Canada" in 1916 with a citation of 88. I picked this one since it was the first one that appeared when I searched for a spouse with the surname of Smith.

We are fortunate that the "Acts of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada" AKA "Statutes of Canada" have been digitized and made available on the Internet Archive. Filtering on just the year 1916, two volumes are returned: "Acts of the Parliament of Canada (12th Parliament, 6th Session, Chapter 1-29), 1916" and "Acts of the Parliament of Canada (12th Parliament, 6th Session, Chapter 30-94), 1916". Since the citation from the database stated "88", I would look in the volume containing chapters 30 to 94. Very quickly I was able to find "An Act for the relief of Clarice Smith" recorded in 6-7 George V, Chap. 88. Not only do we find when the divorce was granted but also where they were residing (Toronto, Ontario), when and where they were married (25 Oct 1913 in Chicago, Illinois), and the reason for the divorce.

I will also sometime look in the "Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources" hosted by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

For more modern acts from about 2000 onwards, I will usually head over to CanLII to search their Legislation databases or the Law Society of Ontario "Great Library" and their library guide "On the Web: Where to Find Canadian Legislation" to point me to where I can find the current legislation.

 

As an aside, you might have noticed acts include something like "6-7 George V" or "20 Vic". Instead of writing the year of when the session of the legislature or parliament was held, earlier acts included the year of the reigning monarch. To help me figure out the year I will turn to the "Convert Regnal Years to Calendar Years" page hosted on Barry Sharples' Bosbury History Resource. Looking up the 20th year of Victoria's reign it tells us that the year is 1857.

Often when I have a question about why something was included or changed on a form, or I find a semi-cryptic ink stamp on a record, I've found that reading the legislation can help me understand what I've found. 

Hopefully this will also help you out in your family history research endeavors.

Census of the Prairie Provinces, 1926 now on Ancestry...sort of

Up until now, we could only search for folks who lived in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in the Census of the Prairie Provinces that started on June 1st, 1926 on FamilySearch in their "Canada, Prairie Provinces Census, 1926" collection via the "Canada, Prairie Provinces, Census, 1926" collection specific search page or using the Library and Archives Canada's "Census search" system. FamilySearch and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) both provide access to this census for free. The FamilySearch site even has a pretty good search system that also searches for variations of names, something that the LAC search can't do for us.

So why would we care that Ancestry now includes this census, labelled as "1926 Prairie Census of Canada", as part of their catalogue?

Many folks have their online tree, whether it be public or private, on Ancestry and many like to have one central place to search for information and record details about their ancestors. Of course, Ancestry isn't the only genealogy focused research site but it is probably the one used by the most people. In my case, along with Ancestry, I use almost all the major genealogy related sites in my research (budget permitting!), plus many others sites hosted by organizations such universities, libraries, archives, museums, and private individuals. So I've been using this census for some time now to help me document my Prairie kin.

But back to Ancestry and their "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" collection.

Screen capture of the top part of the "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" search page on Ancestry taken 9 Jan 2025.

On the Ancestry search page for the "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" we can search by the usual personal information such as their first, middle, and last names, along with when and where they were born. We can also search on additional details such gender, marital status, relation to the head of the household, whether they could speak English or French, could they read or write, ethnicity, citizenship, and immigration date. We can also search on the census details such as district and sub-district numbers.

However, you might notice something missing on the right side of the search page. Unlike with the other Canadian censuses that Ancestry has made available on their site, there is no way to browse the images of the pages.

That's because this collection is just an index and the images of the census pages aren't available on Ancestry (at least at this time).

This creates a little bit of a problem since I always stress that we should always look at the images of the source material. 

Why? To see what has been excluded from the index transcription or to confirm that it is the right person we are looking at due to transcription challenges.

So how do we do that with this census?

To start with, you may have searched for the person in this census on Ancestry or it could have popped up as a hint. Here is a screen capture of the page on Ancestry with the details for Donald McMullen, my grandfather.

Screen capture of the Ancestry "1926 Prairie Census of Canada" collection details page for Donald McMullen, age 9 years, in Manitoba, Canada.

As you can see, there is no image on the left side of the index transcription information for us to click on and look at.

We are going to have to do a little bit of work to get to the image since we are going to visit the Library and Archives Canada "Census search" page. Why use the Library and Archives Canada "Census search" since FamilySearch has the same information? FamilySearch doesn't let us search using the enumeration district and sub-district information. The district information is useful for filtering down to just a single page or two when there are multiple people with the same name. Plus with LAC we don't even need an account to view the images.

So we need to write down a few details from that Ancestry details screen:

• Name
• Age
• Residence Place
• Enumeration District
• Sub-District

All these details came from the index on the Library and Archives Canada site. By the way, the index for this census on the LAC site originally came from the folks at FamilySearch.

Popping over the Library and Archives Canada "Census search" page I've filled in the key fields with the information from the Ancestry details screen for my grandfather, Donald McMullen:

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census search page with "1926 (Prairies)" selected, First name of "Donald", Last name of "McMullen", Age 9, in Manitoba with District number 17 and Sub-district number 19 specified in the "Where" "more" section.

Here I've selected to search only the "1926 (Prairies)" census in the "When" section.

In the "Who" section, I've typed in the name exactly how it was found spelled in the Ancestry details along with the age.

When I only selected the "1926 (Prairies)", the "Where" section greyed out all the provinces not covered in this census. This made it easy to only select Manitoba since that is the residence place listed in the details.

The next step is a little more advanced, I need to click on the "More" button under "Place" to display the district and sub-district search boxes. There I filled in the District number, 17 in this case, and Sub-district number of 19.

With all those details, only one result was returned.

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census search results page of the "1926 (Prairies)" for Donald McMullen, age 9 years, in Manitoba.

A few tips concerning the results page:

• If you need to change your search don't use your browser's back button. Instead, click on that "Modify search" link at the top to bring up the search screen again. Using the back button will often bring you to a empty search screen and you have to type all the information again.
  
• As tempting as it is, don't click on the "digital object(s)" image to view the page. You are going to want to click on the name of the person.

Clicking on the name brings us to the details page. If I had just clicked on the image, I wouldn't be able to see the details about the record on the LAC site that I will want to use in a citation (we all use citations, right?).

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Census search details page of the "1926 (Prairies)" for Donald McMullen, age 9 years, in Manitoba, item ID number 7193049.

You can now view the image on your screen, print it on your printer, or download it to your computer.

If you choose to download the image to your computer you can either save just the page you at looking at as a JPG or save all the pages in that sub-district as a PDF. 

Census of the Prairie Provinces, 1926, Manitoba, enumeration district 17 Winnipeg South Centre, sub-district 19 Winnipeg (City), page 29; imaged, "Census search", Library and Archives Canada (http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=71934049&lang=eng : accessed 9 Jan 2025); citing ecopy number e011232194.

No matter what you choose to do, you can now review all the details recorded about the person for yourself. One detail that we don't find in the transcription is the address where the person was residing. This could be a street address for a town or city, or the section, township, range, and meridian that we can use to learn more about the property.

Have fun searching this census for your kin who resided in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta in 1926!

The Harry Creagen Fonds of Canadian RFC and RNAS Airmen

During my visit to the Library and Archives at the Ingenium Centre in Ottawa to look at the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company Records, the archivist, Adele Torrance, mentioned that part of a collection held by the Library and Archives at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM) in Ottawa had been digitized by Ancestry. Just a note, this is not the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) that we often use in our Canadian research.

The Harry Creagen Fonds were pulled together by Mr. Creagen between 1938 and the 1990s. Mr. Creagen had a life long interest in aviation and he created a collection mainly concerning Canadians who served during the First World War in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), and also the Royal Air Force which was created by merging the RFC and RNAS in 1918.

McKinlay, Ken, Stack one of three of banker boxes of the Harry Creagen Collection, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

What the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives received were a number of files organized by subjects and placed in bankers boxes. The files are still in those boxes at the archives and haven't been added into their catalogue...yet. It's a long process and there is limited staff to do all that work. 

I had the fun and pleasure of actually looking through those boxes when I visited the Library and Archives at the CASM when I was looking for information about the Royal Naval Air Service Wing No. 3 and one of their pilots, Gordon Stuart Harrower, a Canadian from the Montreal area. 

Honestly, it really was fun!

It's not often that one gets to explore a collection with no idea of what may be found. With the aid of the archivist, Adele, we spent about an hour looking in the boxes and file folders to understand how the material was filed and finding material of specific interest to my research task for the day. Remember, this material hasn't been entered into the CASM catalogue and all we had to go on were the labels on the boxes and a subject matter list of the material that is organized by Mr. Creagen's filing cabinet drawers. 

McKinlay, Ken, File folders found in one box from the Harry Creagen Collection, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

One sort of offbeat file I came across was what I'm guessing is an English transcription or abstract of the Jagdgeschwader Nr. 1 Victory Log. You might be asking why this might be of interest. This is the German squadron sometimes referred to as "The Flying Circus" that was led by Manfred von Richthofen, AKA the Red Baron. These pages list the date, pilot, the type of allied aircraft shot down, where it happened and the kill number for that pilot. It also records when a German pilot of JG 1 was wounded or killed. As with any collection, until you start to dive into the records, you just never know what you will come across.

Then there are the boxes of the index cards created by Mr. Creagen.

McKinlay, Ken, Boxes of index cards from the Harry Creagen Collection, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

It is this part of the collection that has been digitized by Ancestry.

Before rushing over to Ancestry to look for these digitized index cards, they aren't on Ancestry. Instead you will find them on Fold3 or Forces War Records. These two sites hold many of the military collections digitized by Ancestry and they may be pointed to from indexes on Ancestry. Where you will find the digitized index cards online is in the Canada, WWI, RCAF Pilot Cards on Forces War Records. You will also find it on Fold3 in their Canada, WWI, RCAF Pilot Cards collection. Basically, the same collection but on two different Ancestry owned sites.

So what will you possibly find written on those index cards?

As I mentioned, I was curious about Gordon Stuart Harrower of Montreal. One of his daughters married into a branch in my family tree. I had stumbled across a mention of Mr. Harrower serving in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War and the research itch took hold.

Here are the cards I found by searching for his name in that collection on Forces War Records.

If I didn't already know the date of his death, I now have it. But the index cards for Mr. Harrower held other clues such as the squadrons he served in, when he left the service, and even that he trained in Texas. I also found out that he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. Maybe some day I'll do a blog post about Mr. Harrower since, in addition to his service, he was trained at Wright Brothers Field and is mentioned on a plaque at the Wright Brothers Memorial in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

Along with looking at the Harry Creagen Fonds, the archivist also took the time to look through the CASM catalogue of books for material that may have shed light into the Royal Naval Air Service and Canadians aviators in the First World War.

McKinlay, Ken, A selection of books from the CASM Library concerning the RNAS and other topics of interest, Photograph, 10 Oct 2024, Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives.

They have a wonderful library in addition to their archives and I know I could easily spend a full afternoon just perusing the books on the shelves. They even have a flight log book copy collection of log books that have been donated to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Archives of military and civilian pilots.

I really can't thank Adele Torrance enough for taking the time out of her day to show me the Harry Creagen Fonds in the CASM vault and also searching the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Library and Archives catalogue for additional books and material. 

If you are looking to visit the Library and Archives at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, check out their page at https://ingeniumcanada.org/aviation/library-and-archives for the opening hours, location, and contact information. Don't forget to get an admission ticket to explore all the neat exhibits after you finish your research!

Researching Those Who Served Canada in the First and Second World Wars

McKinlay, Ken, "Cross of Sacrifice, National Military Cemetery," Photograph, 10 November 2018, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

With Remembrance Day rapidly approaching I've updated my two pages under my "Links of Interest" that I use in my own research:

• First World War: Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War
• Second World War: Researching the Canadians Who Served 

I am also giving several talks in the next few weeks concerning researching those who served Canada in the First and Second World Wars:

Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War - Join me online for an exploration into the process of uncovering the military service of our Canadian ancestors who served in the First World War. Through real-life case studies, this presentation will guide you through the rich array of resources available for tracing the military history of your relatives. Learn about the contents of the service files, additional archival records, and other invaluable tools to bring the past to life and gain a deeper understanding of your family's wartime legacy. 

• 11 Nov 2024 at 7 pm ET: Bruce County Genealogical Society - Register via Zoom at Researching a Canadian Soldier of the Great War (https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UEPUe3QRSwem1kW6CA1cLA#/registration)

 

Second World War: Researching the Canadians Who Served - This presentation delves into the wealth of records available for researching Canadians who served during the Second World War. We’ll explore both the poignant records of those who gave their lives in service to Canada and the rich archival resources that reveal the stories of those who survived. Whether your interest lies in uncovering military service details, personal narratives, or broader historical insights, this session hopefully provides the tools and guidance to deepen your understanding of those who served Canada.

• 18 Nov 2024 at 7 pm ET: Sudbury District Branch of Ontario Ancestors: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tdOyvrjoqHta5RnLfLzuwLnh9xvaGbRdE#/registration
  
• 24 Nov 2024 at 2 pm ET: Halton-Peel Branch of Ontario Ancestors: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUofuqqrTgoHNMKs-qiVWTp3Z99kflBJMzo#/registration
  

 

 

McKinlay, Ken, "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, National War Memorial," Photograph, 26 June 2022, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Finding a War Bride in the Directorate of Movements Microfilms

After a year of writing new talks and updating my existing genealogy talks I finally took sometime this past month to do a bit of diving into the records of folks who married into my various lines in order to see what I was missing. One of those tasks was looking for folks found in the 1921 Census of England and also the 1939 Registration that took place in England. 

And that is where this story starts. 

I started looking into the life of Vera Beresford, born about 1920 in Manchester, England. I really didn't have much information about her, only what I gleaned from the service file of her husband Arnold Norman Richard Burfield. 

Arnold Burfield is my 3rd cousin once removed and he was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada on 2 Aug 1914. He enlisted to serve Canada in the Second World War and he was killing in action in Sicily on 23 Jul 1943 while with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. So I started by once again reviewing his service file which is now available online from Library and Archives Canada. The last time I had looked at his file was in 2012 and I actually had to go to LAC to view the original file. My genealogy research skills have advanced just a bit since then so I looked at his file a bit closer.

That is when I came across this memo in his file.

Canada, "Military Service Record: Burfield, Arnold Norman, Regimental Number C5652," memorandum from Director of Repatriation to Director of Records, dated 12 Jan 1945; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

It is a memorandum from the Director of Repatriation to the Director of Records dated 12 Jan 1945.

I realized I had missed this important clue in my earlier reviews of the file. It meant that his wife, Vera, was a war bride. That note states that Vera and her son Norman had arrived from overseas, ex W 779 on 6 Jan 1945. It also provided the destination address of her mother-in-law.

But what is that "ex W 779"?

Honestly, that took a bit of Google-fu to find that answer. I found it in the document "TrainShipSchedules39 45" that was uploaded to Scribd by David A Ryan on 23 Oct 2019. For those researching mass military personnel movements within Canada and also for ships going across the ocean during the Second World War, this document is a real treasure trove. It is described as:

"This document lists the unit serial numbers and embarkation locations for various Canadian military units between 1939 and 1945. It includes divisions, brigades, batteries, regiments, pioneer battalions, medical and supply units. The units embarked from locations across Canada like Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver as well as some from the UK."

Buried within that document I came across these items:

TS #	Serial #	Unit	Embarkation
1434	-	Ex-W-779 Dependents Special	Halifax
1435	-	Ex-W-779 Dependents Special	Halifax

The above table extract deals with the trains taking the dependents to their new Canadian homes.

The next two table extracts provide the dates, ships, and ports information.

Date	Destination	Date	Ship #	Ship Name
6-Jan-45	Halifax		W-779	Mauretania
6-Jan-45	Montreal		W-779	Mauretania
6-Jan-45	Various		W-779	Mauretania
6-Jan-45	Various		W-779	Mauretania

Ship#	Ship Name	Port	Sailing Date	Convoy
W-779	Mauretania	Halifax	6-Jan-45	-

So it looks like the ex W-779 in that memorandum is the ship Mauretania. No, this is not the Mauretania that was mentioned in the film "Titanic". This is the RMS Mauretania that was built in 1938.

Thanks to the posts by John Reid in his Anglo-Celtic Connections blog, the Canadian War Brides stories available on the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa site in their name index, and discussions with fellow researchers, I knew that many of the microfilms for the Directorate of Movements held by Library and Archives Canada and available in a digitized format on the Héritage might have additional information. What I didn't realize is that there are 198 microfilms with many of them having 5000+ images each to go through.

So it was time to rethink my approach of just diving in since I'm not going to wade through all of those millions of images to find the ship and hopefully documents I'm interested in. I need work smarter and not harder.

Since the microfilms came from Library and Archives Canada I decided to see what the Collection Search might give me. But what to search on?

• The obvious is the name of the ship, "Mauretania". 422 results were returned. I want to narrow it down just a bit.
• In the "About" tab for the Directorate of Movements topic page on Héritage it stated that the archival reference is "RG 24 C 24". From my own experience I know that "RG 24" is written as "RG24" on the LAC site and it is the Department of National Defence fonds. Adding "RG24 C 24" (the quotes are needed) to the search reduces it to 96 results. Not bad.
• Thinking a bit more about the "W" prefix for the ship number I realized that it probably indicated a westbound ship. So I added "westbound" (without quotes) and now I have 61 results. 
• Finally I filtered the date by the Year: 1945 since that is when the Mauretania arrived in Halifax. That got it down to 11 results. Now that it manageable!

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada Collection Search for 'mauretania "RG24 C 24" westbound" Date: 1945' showing the first of eleven results returned.

Scrolling though the results I came across this entry: "Westbound Personnel - MAURETANIA - Port of Departure - Halifax - Convoy TA-175 [United Kingdom to United States]". However, I wanted Halifax as the port of arrival. In the record information section it stated the date was 1945/01/07 (year/month/day formatted), it is found on microfilm reel number C-5717, and the file number is "HQTS-63-303-779-1". Hmmm, that 779 looks familiar though so I retained some hope that I could find the right microfilm and information about Vera and Norman.

Since microfilm C-5717 is on the Héritage site I decided to see what I could find.

Sigh.

5297 images and none of them are available for text searching. Time to hunker down and start walking through the microfilm images in the hope that this microfilm might have any information about the passage and maybe even find Vera and Norman Burfield listed somewhere.

On image 4 there I came across the Ship Allotment page.

Department of National Defence., "Directorate of Movements," images, Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 29 Jul 2024), Ship Allotment for the Mauretania, M.C. 303-779, Code AT 175; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-5717, image 4. 

It appears that the file starts with the disembarkation in Halifax. It also seems to indicate that there are 630 dependents of Army, Air Force, Navy, and Firefighter personnel on this ship in addition to service members.

I started bouncing through the images in leaps of 20 to see if I might come across lists of passengers. And I got really lucky!

Department of National Defence., "Directorate of Movements," images, Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 29 Jul 2024), List of Canadian Dependents Arriving in Canada ex W-779, List No. 10, for M.D. 3, Sheet No. 2; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-5717, image 200.

On image 200 there was Vera and Norman listed. Nothing new was discovered but the information matches that which was found in the memorandum I found in Arnold's service file. 

That "M.D. 3" on the top right of the page stands for "Military District 3" which, as of 1939, had its headquarters in Kingston, Ontario and included their destination of Peterborough. The various military districts in Canada from 1900 to 1999 can be found listed on the Canadian Soldiers site on their "Domestic Military Organization 1900-1999" page.

I will admit to having a chuckle when I came across pages and pages of letters and notes concerning lost luggage. Even 80 years ago luggage was being misplaced or lost and folks were trying to get compensation for the missing items.

There are pages detailing the need to trains to take the passengers to their destinations including a documents with the timings of the special trains that departed on 7 Jan 1945 starting at image 372. At the bottom of image 375 I found V. Burfield listed and that she had one suitcase and one box to start a new life in Canada as a war widow for her and her son.

I can't imagine coming to Canada from England in the midst of a Nova Scotia winter.

So what happened to Vera and Norman?

She remarried and in 1960 she went back to England with her new family where she passed away many years later.

Where else can you look for records and information? 

You might be able to find your war bride and children in the "UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960" collection on Ancestry and the "Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960" collection on Findmypast. There you might come across a record created by the Canadian Wives' Bureau - Civilian Repatriation Section like what we see here for Jaboca E Sauve departing on the Scythia out of Liverpool on 24 Oct 1946 bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

"Passenger lists leaving UK 1890-1960," database with images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 29 Jul 2024), Jacoba E Sauve on board the Scythia departing from Liverpool on 24 Oct 1946; citing The National Archives (Kew), BT 27 Series, 129508.

However, not all the ships may be found in this collection. Such is the case for Vera and Norman Burfield.

Remember that the information about the ship movements were often a war secret. Details about the comings and goings of ships would not have been reported in the newspapers of the Allies, especially if the ships were carrying military personnel or supplies. However, the local newspapers where they were going to might have articles about welcoming the war brides to their new home.

Just keep in mind that this sort of research isn't simple or quick to do but it can be rewarding and even informative. In this case, I was lucky enough to have enough details to start looking for records and researching what might be found and it only took me a day or so of research to find what I did.

As with much of our research, all we need is a starting place. Often that starting place is already in the records we have and family stories we've been told.

Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions - Updated

Back in 2015 I wrote an article titled "Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions" which pointed folks to the instructions that the enumerators were supposed to follow (operative word here is "supposed"). Over the past 9 years we've had two more Canadian censuses released to the public, Library and Archives Canada has undergone a change to their site, and links to some of the instructions have broken. So here is an update to that article.

Seventh census of Canada 1931, instructions to commissioners and enumerators (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1931), cover page.

First of all, before pointing you to the enumerator instructions, I want to remind everyone to make sure you read all the way across the census page and look at each column. There can be important clues held within that we may be ignoring in our haste to move to the next record to locate. Details such as:

• Were the children going to school? 
• Did someone in the household have an infirmity? 
• Was another language spoken in the household? 
• Is there a note indicating the date and household where the enumerator stopped their work for the day?

In our review of the various columns we will come across abbreviations that might have us wondering things like what religion is "E.M.C." and what is that "U.C." recorded for the place of birth. My initial starting place to help me decipher those abbreviations is the "General census guide" page on Library and Archives Canada web site found under their "Census records" topic page. If you haven't done so lately, take the time to check out the various census related pages found under that topic page. There have been many changes and updates in the past few years.

As for the instructions to the enumerators, the "Pre-Confederation, 1825 to 1867", "Dominion of Canada, 1871 to 1931", and "Prairie Provinces Census, 1870-1926" pages on the Library and Archives Canada site all have columns with links pointing to where we can find the instruction. Some of these links will take you to the Act permitting the government to take the census.

In addition to the links provided by Library and Archives Canada, here the links to the same sorts of instruction manuals for the post Confederation enumerations of Canada mostly found on the Internet Archive:

• 1871: Manual containing The Census Act and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the first census of Canada
• 1881: Manual containing The Census Act and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the second census of Canada
• 1891: Manual containing "The Census Act," and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the third census of Canada
• 1901: Instructions to chief officers, commissioners and enumerators
• 1911: Instructions to officers, commissioners and enumerators and Instructions to enumerators in the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory
• 1921: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1931: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1941: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators

There are also the surviving special nominal censuses of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta that were taken between the censuses of the rest of the dominion:

• 1906: Issue of Proclamation for taking the Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta
• 1916: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1926: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1936: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators
• 1946: Instructions to commissioners and enumerators 
  

Before Confederation in 1867 there were censuses taken of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West. These censuses can vary greatly in terms of what was asked. For example, the Nova Scotia censuses prior to Confederation only include the name of the head of household

1851: 

• Nova Scotia: An Act for taking the Census of the Province, and obtaining Statistical information
• New Brunswick: An Act for ascertaining the Population of this Province and An Act to amend an Act, intituled An Act for ascertaining the Population of this Province
  

1852 (Canada East/Canada West)

• Gagan, David P., "Enumerators' Instruction for the Census of Canada 1852 and 1861." Histoire sociale/Social History. Vol. VII, no. 14 (Novembre-November 1974)

1861

• Canada East/Canada West: Gagan, David P., "Enumerators' Instruction for the Census of Canada 1852 and 1861." Histoire sociale/Social History. Vol. VII, no. 14 (Novembre-November 1974)

You might have noticed that I also included the instructions for censuses that have not yet been released to the public. The images for those census won't be transferred from Statistics Canada to Library and Archives Canada until 92 years after the census date. However, now we at least know what questions were asked.

As always, make sure you save any of the PDFs to your computer for safe keeping. One never knows when a page or document will disappear from the Internet.