Be a Better Genealogy Helper

First of all, I want to give my heartfelt thanks to all those wonderful genealogy and family history researchers out there who unselfishly answer genealogy related questions at in-person events and in the online world. Especially in the online world, quite often there is no thanks or acknowledgement of your time and effort to provide good answers. I see you and thank you for all you do in our community!

"records" by Anna (https://www.flickr.com/photos/art_es_anna/1314358266). CC BY 2.0.

Yet, there are several problems I keep seeing crop up in the answers being provided, especially in the online communities, that are sort of pet peeves of mine.

"Just use <insert site here>" 

The first issue I have is when I see folks state, "Just use <insert site here>.", and that is it. The site might be FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, The Genealogist, Library and Archives Canada, Héritage, or a countless number of other genealogy or potentially genealogy related websites. It's right up there with "Just Google it!" as a bad answer to give. Many times, the person asking the question just doesn't even know where to start to find the answer and are feeling confused or overwhelmed.

In my eyes, giving an answer like that is similar to saying "Just go to the library, the answer is in a book there." As we all know, there are thousands of books in a library and the answer being sought may only be in one of those books in a part of the library that the person has never glanced at. So which book has the information being sought? 

In the world of libraries and books, we would probably say, "You need to check out <title of a book> by <author>, I think it might have the information you are seeking." Of course, they still have to find the book but that is what the card catalogue is for. They might even walk up to the library reference desk to ask for help in finding the book on the shelf. 

The same goes for many of the genealogy related websites. There may be hundreds or thousands of collections found on the one site. So, we need to provide a bit more guidance to point the person to the right collection or collections that could provide them with the document they are seeking.

Of course, to do that, we have to spend a bit more time crafting our answer. We might have to visit the website we are suggesting they use to get the title of the collection and possibly even the link to the search page for that specific collection. Maybe we might want to do a test search ourselves to make sure that the answer might be found in the collection. Yes, this will take more than the one minute spent giving that quick answer. Yet it will help out that poor soul who has been brave enough to reach out to ask for assistance considerably more than "Just use <insert site here>."

Does the Site Have the Answer?

Another issue I come across is related to the first one. It is when those kind folks who provide an answer haven't actually checked to see if the site they are recommending actually has the information. It could be as simple as the person willing to help out not understanding the question being asked. I know I've fallen into that trap a few times myself. Other times, the person responding to the question is parroting something they have heard or read without actually understanding the material. Unfortunately, I've come across that a few times when it comes to locating and using records and documents related to Ontario land transactions.

Honestly, this sort of answer can be really frustrating to the person posing the question. They might spend hours trying to find something on a site that doesn't have the answer. That sort of frustration can discourage them from asking their next question. They might even give up looking for their family's roots altogether.

Providing Images Without Sources Stated 

Another issue I see, again especially in the online community, is along the lines of "Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach them how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime."

I will often see someone posting the images of the documents or records they have found that may answer the question being posed. It is wonderful that they were able to locate the record being sought, but, in almost all the cases, they don't state the site where the image was sourced. I'm not talking about writing an Evidence Explained level of source citation though. 

My request to all those genealogy helpers out there who do that, is please include the name of the website and the collection where it was found. If it was a bit tricky to find the record or document, consider including the keywords that were used to find the image. Not only will you be helping out the person who asked the question, but others reading your answer might discover a new site or collection whey didn't even know about that could help them in their own research.

Not Reading/Understanding the Question

The final problem I want to bring up, at least when it comes to those willing to help out, is not actually reading or understanding the question being asked and then doing all three of the above pet peeves of mine.

Yes, I have failed at this a few times. In one recent case on Facebook, I wrote up a "good answer", posted it, and then, just because I wanted to make sure I covered what was being asked, I re-read the question. It turned out I provided an answer that applied to locating records of those who served Canada in the Second World War and not the First World War. Too bad the person asking for help clearly stated "WWI" in their question. I had seen the other answers and they all said "WWII" or "Second World War". Everyone was answering the question wrong — including me. I quickly deleted my answer — yes, you are allowed to delete your replies on Facebook — and wrote a response that answered what they were actually posing in their question.

Also, if there is not enough information in the question for you to provide a reasonable answer, ask that person a follow up question or two. We do that all the time when we are speaking to someone in person. We should do it more often in the online world too.

 

For those who have read my answers to questions posed in the various Canadian genealogy related Facebook groups, or have written to me privately asking for assistance, you might have noticed that my answers can be a bit long-winded at times. That is because I try to point folks to the collection(s) on the site(s) I might be referring to and I also try to explain the process I used to find the answer. I really am wanting to "Teach them how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime." from a genealogical research point of view.

Does it take more time? 

Heck, yeah!

Most of the time it takes me at least 10 to 15 minutes to write what I consider a "good answer". Of course, an Ontario land records related question often takes much longer to answer since they can be a bit tricky at times.

Yet, at the same time, I will often learn something new or possibly clarify something I thought I had understood.

So please strive to be a better genealogy helper when answering questions. I know you can!

 

Full-Text Search + Research = A Win!

FamilySearch's Full-Text Search is a real game changer when it comes to finding records that we might not have come across in the past. The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Handwriting Recognition Technology tools that create the transcriptions used by Full-Text Search just don't index the names of the principal parties mentioned on the processed documents. These transcriptions and subsequent indexes index every word in the documents. It means we can search on not just names but occupations, addresses, and phrases. Of course, there will be interesting transcription errors created by the machines. So, we can't rely on Full-Text Search to find every record.

I will say it again for those in the back:

We can't rely on Full-Text Search to find every record.

Let's take a look at a case where FamilySearch's Full-Text Search helped remove the mortar that loosed a brick to help tear down a brick-wall I've had for some years in my research.

It was a simple question I've been struggling with for some time: Who were the parents of Mary Foley, my 3rd great-grandmother, and wife of Thomas Well, who lived in Blanchard Township, Perth County, Canada West/Ontario?

I had made some assumptions in my research:

• Mary Foley and Thomas Wells lived and met in Blanchard Township.
• Mary Foley was of the Protestant faith. This was based on the 1861 Census of Canada West and the 1871 Census of Canada of their household.

These two starting assumptions were reasonable based on the facts I had but, as we will soon see, wrong.

There were trees online with various possible names for her parents. However, none of them provided any evidence of their assertions. Since I barely trust my own genealogy research, I'm definitely not going to take the word of anyone else without some sort of evidence.

It all started while FamilySearch's Full-Text Search was still in the experiment phase and I was playing around with it.

FamilySearch Full-Text Search search box with the keywords '+"Thomas Wells" +Mary +Foley'.

It was a simple search using keywords. I wanted all documents that had all the following words or phrases: "Thomas Wells", Mary, and Foley found in the resulting transcription generated by the Full-Text Search tools.

I got something like this:

Screen capture of the results page from FamilySearch's Full-Text Search for '+"Thomas Wells" +Mary +Foley' from 11 Jun 2026.

That first result returned was a land record from Pelham Township in Welland County, Ontario, Canada. The associated transcription hint was enticing:

108 No 2418 . Quit Claim Thomas Wells et, al To Mary Scanlan E Registered 25th Feby . 1868 at 3 . O'Clock P.M. …
…of Ontario in the Dominion of Canada, Farmer, and Mary Wells of the same placewife of the said Thomas Wells, of…
…and Satisfaction of the Legacy to the above named Mary Wells, under the Will of the late James Foley deceased, …
…full, 2nd That I was personally present and did see, Thomas Wells, and Mary Wells the grantors named in the …

Looking and reading the document — several times in fact — provided a whole bunch of possible clues

Pelham Township, book F, Instrument 2418, Quit Claim, p. 108-109 [stamped]; imaged, “Land records of Welland County, 1796-1922,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org: accessed 11 Jun 2026), image group number (IGN) 8636751 > image 417 of 675.

• It was a land record quit claim where Thomas and Mary Wells were relinquishing any possible claims they might have had to the lot in question
• Thomas Wells was of the Township of Blanshard in the County of Perth, Ontario
• Mary Wells is the wife of Thomas Wells
• The lot was part of the North part of Lot Number 12 in the Tenth Concession of the Township of Pelham
• That lot was owned by the late James Foley, the elder
• John Foley and James Foley, the younger, had paid Mary Wells $10 per the will of the late James Foley

That seemed like a good match to my Thomas and Mary Wells.

Since I now had the location of the lot in Pelham Township, I could semi-quickly locate the abstract register of the lot and maybe even find a copy of the will in the land record copy books.

Time for me to stop searching and to start researching. So I switched from using search boxes to browsing collections, a bit researching, some thinking, and a bit of luck.

I could have used OnLand since they usually gather all the associated pages for a lot into a easily findable group of images, but I stayed with FamilySearch and their digitized copy of what they call their "Abstract index books, 1796-1958" collection created by the Registrar of Deeds for Welland County, Ontario to find this page.

Pelham Township, book A, Abstract register for Lot No. 12 in 10th Concession for the Township of Pelham [extract], p. 203 [stamped]; imaged, “Abstract index books, 1796-1958,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org: accessed 11 Jun 2026), image group number (IGN) 8636746 > image 114 of 284.

There is a listing for the "Probate of Will" as instrument 481 dated 20 May 1863 and registered on 18 May 1866 in the Land Registry Office for James Foley which was transferring 20 acres to his sons John Foley and James Foley.

Pelham Township, book E, Instrument 481, Probate of Will, p. 210-211 [stamped]; imaged, “Land records of Welland County, 1796-1922,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org: accessed 11 Jun 2026), image group number (IGN) 8636751 > image 138 of 675.

This copy of James Foley's will along with the preamble in the land record copy book provided even more details:

• He died on or about 3 Nov 1865 at Pelham
• The will included in the land record copy book is a true copy of his Last Will and Testament
• John Foley and James Foley received lot 12 in the 10th Concession of Pelham
• He has a daughter named Anna Foley, the wife of John Hicks, and she received $200
• He has a daughter Mary Wells, and she received $10
• He has a wife named Jane

I also looked up his probate file in FamilySearch's "Probate records, 1856-1903 // index, 1856-1969" collection created by the Surrogate Court of Welland County. There in the digitized microfilm titled "Probate papers nos. 254-383 1865-1869", starting at image 127 of 1472, just in case there might be other tidbits of information.

What stood out to me in the will was that Mary only got $10 while Anna got $200. Also, Anna's husband was mentioned but Mary's husband wasn't. 

"Died: Foley," The Ingersoll Chronicle [Ingersoll, Ontario], 1 Dec 1865, page 3, column 2; imaged, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 22 Aug 2025).

Using Newspapers.com, I even found a mention in the 1 Dec 1865 edition of the Ingersoll Chronicle a death notice for James Foley and his wife Jane. I thinking her age in this notice is a bit exaggerated.

I next looked for the family in the 1861 Census of Canada West to see if there might be another clue.

Census of 1861, Canada West, Welland County, Pelham Township, population schedule, page 31 [stamped]; imaged in "Census of 1861 (Canada East, Canada West, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia)," Library and Archives Canada (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=45180961&lang=eng&ecopy=4108422_00504 : accessed 11 Jun 2026).

On that page I found what appears to be the household of James Foley with the following basic details abstracted:

• James Foley, farmer, born in Ireland, Catholic, age 53 years, male, married, living in a shanty
• Jane Foley, born in Ireland, Catholic, age 70 years [see, the death notice was lying!], female, married 
• James Foley, born in Canada West, Catholic, age 19 years, male, single
• Ann Foley, born in Canada West, Catholic, age 15 years, female, single 

Just a second...Catholic?

That changes my religion assumption big time.

It also might explain why Mary only got $10 in the will of James Foley and Mary's husband, Thomas, wasn't mentioned. Might she have been "punished" for marrying out of her faith?

Yet I couldn't find the family in the Census of 1851 (which was taken in 1852) for Canada West in Pelham Township. After doing a few hours of research into the land records using FamilySearch's Full-Text Search and reviewing abstract registers, I learned that between 13 Mar 1847 and 23 Sep 1853, James Foley was residing in Grantham Township, Lincoln County, Canada West.

Guess what? The Census of 1851 for that township didn't survive. Of all the rotten luck!

Now that I learned the family followed the Catholic Church, and from prior research that Mary was born about 1836 in Canada West, I took a look at what records for Catholic Churches in the Niagara area can be found on FamilySearch for the 1830s. One collection immediately stood out — "Parish registers, 1827-1910" for Saint Vincent de Paul (Niagara, Ontario) Catholic Church. Of course, it wasn't name indexed or even added to Full-Text Search. But that's never stopped me in the past.

It only took a few minutes of leafing though the images before I found her entry of baptism in the parish register:

St. Vincent de Paul [Niagara-on-the-Lake], Baptisms, marriages, burials 1827-1849, Register for the year 1835, B. 40, Mary Foley; imaged, “Parish registers, 1827-1910,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org: accessed 11 Jun 2026), image group number (IGN) 5107199 > image 53 of 351.

There I learned that Mary was baptized on 4 May 1835, aged 1 week, the daughter of James Foley and Margaret McKenna, residing in St. Catharines. 

I finally had the names of Mary's parents! 

But the journey doesn't end there.

If Mary was baptized at St. Vincent de Paul, might her parents have been married there too?

St. Vincent de Paul [Niagara-on-the-Lake], Baptisms, marriages, burials 1827-1849, Register of Baptisms, Marriages and Interments in 1834, M. 1, marriage for James Foley and Margaret McKenny; imaged, “Parish registers, 1827-1910,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org: accessed 11 Jun 2026), image group number (IGN) 5107199 > image 41 of 351.

Recorded as the first marriage for 1834 we find an entry for James Foley and Margaret McKenny. And it is a treasure trove of information for someone who came from Ireland:

June 29th Were married, by me, the undersigned Priest, James Foley Son of John Foley and Mary Power, late of the Parish of Shanagolden Co Limerick Ireland; and Margaret McKenny, Daughter of John McKenny and Sarah Kelly, Co Tyrone Ireland. After one publication of their Banns.

I really struck gold in that record!

It all started with Full-Text Search which turned up that initial land record. Yet it took actual research to get to the parish register with the baptism of Mary and the marriage of her parents. Of course, it was a bit of luck too in that the register had been digitized and made available online.

I can only hope that you have similar success in using FamilySearch's Full-Text Search to start a breakthrough in your genealogical brick-wall. 

Stop Searching, Start Researching

I'm not saying we shouldn't leverage the various computer searchable indexes to hopefully easily find those key documents available online or even in archives, libraries, and museums. Also, making intelligent and thoughtful use of the hints provided by Ancestry, FamilySearch, Findmypast, and all those other genealogy related sites is a smart use of our valuable research time. But remember, those are only hints and quite often those hints won't apply to the person we are researching. So, don't blindly accept any hints provided. Yet, sooner or later, we will encounter a stumbling point — AKA brick wall — in learning about folks in our family tree such as not being able to locate them in the records. At that time, we need to stop searching and actually start researching. 

By the way, I'm not talking about the kind of researching that one might do for a college or university course.

What I'm talking about when I say that "we need to start researching" is that we need to stop relying on the computer to do the work for us and for us to start understanding the records themselves. What I often call "Researching the research". 

Some of the questions you might want to ask are:

• Where will we find the records? 
• When were the records created?
• Why were the records created?
• How were the records created? Might there be two copies where one copy easier to access. Might one copy be missing some details? 
• Are the records available for in-person consultation or have they been digitized and made available online?
• Are there privacy restrictions in place that we might have to overcome?
• Is the information we are seeking even get recorded in the records we want to use?
• Did the format and content of the records we are looking for change over time?
• Are there any "gotchas" in the records? Maybe some of the records haven't survived the ravages of time, they just weren't collected for specific years, or are there are early gaps in the records when folks just didn't follow the laws or rules.
• And the big question — do the records even exist? 

Where can we find this information?

In all sorts of places and often never in a single place.

It could be as simple as an Internet search. Ignoring the sponsored ads that might pop up, the search results might point you to an archive or even a blog post about the subject. Personally, at least at this time, I don't trust those AI summaries provided by the various search engines or large language models, LLMs, like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, Grok, etc. I've found them to be, more often as not, wrong than right. But they have just enough "right" to look and feel correct — and that is the pitfall with them.

Check with the archive that holds the original records on paper or microfilm. Quite often there are research guides on those sites to help you better understand the records themselves. How do you find that archive? Again, an Internet search is often a good starting place.

Check your local library for books on the subject. You remember books, right?

Have there been talks given on the sorts of records you are looking for? Genealogy societies and other organizations such as Legacy Family Tree Webinars might have recordings available for your viewing pleasure. Just keep in mind that you will probably need to be a member to view those recordings.

Even social media sites like Facebook can be helpful. You will often find folks willing to share their knowledge in those groups. Kind folks might even be willing to help you search for the answers to your research question. But before you ask a question on those sites, take the time to review the previously posted messages to see if someone has already asked or answered the question about the records you are seeking.

But most importantly, be curious! In your journey to better understand the records you will also hopefully become a better family history and genealogy researcher.

 

Archives of Ontario RG 1-100 Patent Plans Update

Back in 2014 the Archives of Ontario released downloadable high resolution images of the RG 1-100 Patent Plans of townships in Ontario and there was much happiness. Fast forward to 2022 when the Archives of Ontario Archives Descriptive Database was replaced with the new Archives and Information Management System (AIMS), suddenly all those high resolution images disappeared. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. To view those high resolution images we would have to ask the staff at the Archives of Ontario to send them to us. And yes, I would politely email the reference desk once a year asking if the folks who ran AIMS were ever going to fix this problem.

Well, we can now celebrate once again.

Before diving into the reason for our collective celebration, you might be wondering what I'm writing about. The RG 1-100 Patent Plan series of document held by the Archives of Ontario often have the earliest "maps" of settlement for places in what became known as Ontario. On those plans we might come across the names of those who received a patent from the Crown as the first settler/owner of a lot.

Recently the Archives of Ontario updated their site¹. As I was looking at some of the updated pages, on their "Crown land – Patents" page I came across little nugget:

Find patent plans online

Access high-resolution copies of most of our patent plans online for free through the University of Toronto’s Map and Data Library.

You can:

1. Use the searchable list of patent plans to find a plan by title. Select a plan to start downloading the high-quality .tif file.
2. Search for plans using an interactive online map. Plans have been georeferenced using their latitude and longitude and can be found on the map in the location they depict.

When we visit the Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection hosted by the University of Toronto we get a list of 3996 items in their collection. We can then start typing in the name of the township to whittle down the list to something a bit more manageable, especially since the list doesn't seem to be sorted alphabetically.

I have run into a few quirks with this page when I filter by the township or place and it all depends on which web browser I'm using.

• If I'm using Firefox, if there is no thumbnail image being shown then the text in the first column overlaps with the text in the second column. That text in the first column appears to be the "alt" text for the image and Firefox is showing you all that text.
• If I'm using Chrome, if there is no thumbnail image being shown then I get the "broken image" icon and the alt text is truncated to fit in the column

No matter which browser you are using, you can click on the thumbnail image or text to download the high resolution image to your computer for viewing and/or saving. Just a heads up...those images aren't small JPG images like we normally see on websites. Instead, each of the images are TIF files and can be easily between 80 to 250 MB in size. 

Let's take a look at an example. 

We can search the Archives of Ontario AIMS database for these RG 1-100 Patent Plans by doing the following:

• Select Archival search from the left panel of the "Search the Archives of Ontario"page.
• Under the search box, click on the "Archival advanced" link on the "Search archival collection" page.
• On the Archives advanced search screen:
• Put "RG 1-100" (no quotes, but the space after the "RG" is important) in the "Higher-level reference code" box.
• Put the name of the township you looking for in the "Title" box. e.g. Drummond
• Leave all the other search boxes empty.
• Click the Search button at the bottom of the page and hope the search is working².

When I did a search for Drummond Township it returned 5 results. I picked "Township No. 2 or Drummond, Blotter Plan" as the one I wanted to look at in this example.

Screen capture of the Archives of Ontario details page titled "Township No. 2 or Drummond, Blotter Plan", RG 1-1000-0-0-160.

There we see that the Reference Code is "Item RG 1-100-0-0-160" and the title is "Township No. 2 or Drummond, Blotter Plan". Useful details for our source citation.

If we click on the image on the page, we can only view the low resolution version of that patent plan. Zooming in using the magnifying glass with the "+" symbol in the upper right corner of their viewer only gives us an unreadable image since everything is blurry. That image is fairly useless for our purposes of reading what is written on them.

Using the new "Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection" page hosted by the University of Toronto we can filter on the title for that patent plan we found in AIMS. 

Screen capture from Chrome of the "Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection" page hosted by the University of Toronto with Drummond as the title or plan name.

We can see that title in the list but the thumbnail is showing a broken image icon. No problem, click either on the broken icon or the title and, depending on your browser setup, the image will appear in your browser or you will be prompted to save it to your computer. I always recommend saving it to your computer so you don't have to go through this exercise each time you want to look at the patent plan.

In the case of that "Township No. 2 or Drummond, Blotter Plan" image, the image is 9648 x 7784 pixels. That would be about 81 x 65 cm if printed out assuming 300 DPI. The file size is over 200 MB. What I would call "big".

Township No. 2 or Drummond, Blotter Plan, digital images, University of Toronto Maps and Data Library, Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection (https://maps.library.utoronto.ca/datapub/Ontario/PatentPlans/PatentPlansOntario/PP.html# : accessed 29 Oct 2025); citing Archives of Ontario, RG 1-100-0-0-160.

This is the map zoomed in about 85% and I can clearly read that one of the settlers on Lot 16 in the Second Concession of Drummond is recorded as "Corp^l Alex Fraser 49 Reg^t. Oct. 1816". That's my 4th great-grandfather.

Township No. 2 or Drummond, Blotter Plan zoomed in at 84.2% using Irfanview showing Alex Fraser as a settler on Lot 16, 2nd Concession, digital images, University of Toronto Maps and Data Library, Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection (https://maps.library.utoronto.ca/datapub/Ontario/PatentPlans/PatentPlansOntario/PP.html# : accessed 29 Oct 2025); citing Archives of Ontario, RG 1-100-0-0-160.

If I hadn't already known that Alexander served in the 49th Regiment of Foot, I would have learned a new fact about his life. If I was researching Nathaniel Stedman, from this patent plan I would have learned that he probably emigrated in November 1816. Keep in mind, that most patent plans don't have this sort of detail. For example, in another patent plan for Drummond, RG 1-100-0-0-474 "Drummond ~ County of Lanark", it just has the names of people with no other details.

I have run into a few cases where I get the dreaded 404 error when I try to access a patent plan. When that happens, I hold my breath, count to ten, and try again. I can usually then access the patent plan.

 

We can also use that other link provided on the Archives of Ontario "Crown land – Patents" page which points to the "Ontario Patent Plan Access" site.

Screen capture of the Ontario Patent Plan Access index.

Each of the dots on the map is a patent plan we can view and download.

When you first go to the page, you will get a pop-up with a link to the Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection that we've been looking at. Either press the faint "OK" button or press Escape on your keyboard to close that pop-up. We can now zoom in on the map to better see the individual dots with titles beside them. Clicking on a dot or title will display another pop-up where you can then download the patent plan being referenced.

 

For those who use the very useful Heritage Property INdex site to find early freely available maps for Ontario, when the Archives of Ontario moved to AIMS and broke the links to the high resolution maps, the links on Heritage PIN in the Pre-Confederation Patent Maps pages were also messed up. But the image names were still kept on the screen.

How does that help us?

Instead of searching for a township or plan name on the "Ontario Archives Patent Plans Collection" site, we can search for that file name in the search box. For example, for Drummond Township there are three maps linked to: I0043121, I0043403, and I0050655. We can search for I0050655 and the patent plan "Drummond Township (Perth Townsite)" appears. Now we can download the map for our viewing pleasure³.

In my opinion, for those with early settlers in Ontario, these patent plans should be one of your go-to resources. 

---

1. That's a post for another day since I'm still trying to figure out the good, the bad, and the ugly in terms of our genealogy research endeavours with the new Archives of Ontario site. I'm waiting a week for some of the initial quirks to be hopefully ironed out.

2. Yes, the AIMS back-end still has some serious issues where it just spins its wheels and seems to crash, at least from an end-user perspective. That actually happened as I was writing this post.

3. I have let the owner of the Heritage Property INdex site know of this new development in the ongoing saga of the RG 1-100 Patent Plans.

William Tegerdine, where did you live in Almonte?

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

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

Here is how I approached this genealogy question... 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Well that was easy!

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

But I quickly ran into a problem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

1921 Censuses of England, Wales, Channel Islands, Isle of Man on Ancestry

Up until January 6, 2025, the only place you could view the 1921 censuses of England, Wales, Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man from home was Findmypast. This census had been released on the Findmypast site in January 2022. However, to access that census from home, one either had to have what Findmypast currently calls their "Everything" subscription or pay either for the transcription or to see the images associated with a household on a per household view. That all changed earlier this year when Ancestry added that 1921 census to their catalogue since Findmypast no longer had the exclusive rights to host the images online.

Before we look at this census on Ancestry, it might be a good idea for folks to first read the Findmypast blog page "The 1921 Census is now online for the very first time" and also follow the links on Findmypast's help page "The 1921 Census of England & Wales" as a refresher to understand what was captured and how it was taken. I'll let you read it yourself. When that census was released online in 2022 there was also a flurry of blog posts writing about it such as John Reid's "1921 Census Experience" on Anglo Celtic Connections.

However, before jumping into the images on Ancestry, I want to highlight a few things:

The first issue with this census is that it wasn't taken on Sunday, April 24, 1921 like what it written on all the forms. Due to the "industrial crisis" (mass strikes!) happening at the time, the census had been postponed until June 19, 1921. Of course this can throw a wrench into finding your kin since they may have already started their holidays a bit early. That happened to me with one of my distant cousins.

The next is that this census, unlike the 1950 census of the USA and 1931 Census of Canada which were transcribed using AI enhanced handwriting recognition technology, was transcribed by humans. That is why it took about six months for it to be published with a searchable index on Findmypast instead of the days we are now seeing on Ancestry for newly released censuses.

Finally, when you viewed the image of the census page with the folks listed at an address on Findmypast, you also had the option to view the "Extra" images associated with that page:

• "Cover" of the enumerator's book
• "Address", which was written on the other side of the page that had all the details about who resided at that location. The "address" included details to help one to create a "good" citation.
  
• "Map" showing the big picture of the area to be enumerated
• "Plans of Division" that describes that enumerator district

Findmypast made it easy for us to access all those extra images. If you retrieved the image of the page with the people at a place from Findmypast, hopefully you also downloaded the extra images to your computer for safekeeping and later review.

But what it you didn't spend the money from your genealogy budget (yes, I have a budget for my research) on either the "Everything"subscription on Findmypast or buying access to the individual images? Maybe you only purchased the right to view the transcription on Findmypast and didn't pay to view the image.

Well, if you have a subscription with Ancestry that includes the censuses of England, you now have access to the transcriptions and images without paying extra.

Yet like most of our genealogy and family history research, there are a few gotchas with using the census on Ancestry:

The first is there currently isn't a single search page on Ancestry for the 1921 census for England, Wales, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man like we found on Findmypast. But we can use the existing "UK Census Collection" search page like I show here to search for Harry Warrener. I used the "Residence Date" search box at the bottom of the form to limit the search to exactly 1921 (highlighted in a red oval).

Screen capture of Ancestry's "UK Census Collection" search page looking for Harry Warrener with a Residence Date of exactly 1921, taken 14 Jan 2025.

By doing this, you can easily search the individual Ancestry 1921 census collections of

• 1921 Channel Islands Census
• 1921 England Census
• 1921 Isle of Man Census
• 1921 Wales Census

all in one go.

The next thing to understand is the source of the transcription used to create the searchable index.

Here I've recreated the search I used to find the page with the enumeration of Annie Leontine Chipman. I know we should treat each person in our tree equally but Annie has become a favourite of mine just due to the interesting life she led, challenges she presented me in finding her in the records, and what some of those records have taught me in terms of how they were created (Annie Leontine Chipman and a Census Mystery).

Screen capture of Findmypast's 1921 Census of England & Wales search results for Leontine Chipman, taken 14 Jan 2025.

Here are the results of the same query on Ancestry:

Screen capture of Ancestry's UK Census Collection search results for Leontine Chipman with a residence date of exactly 1921, taken 14 Jan 2025.

Everything seems to be same. My guess is that Findmypast, as part of their agreement with The National Archives (TNA) in England, has given TNA the transcriptions and Ancestry is using those transcriptions instead of creating their own.

Why do I think that?

1921 census of England, Devonshire, Coombe House, St. George's Road, Torquay, extract; digital images, Findmypast, Findmypast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 30 Jul 2024); citing RG 15/10483 Sch 53, registration district 272, sub district 6, enumeration district 31.

In looking at the entry for Leontine Chipman on the image of the occupants of "Coombe House" on St. George's Road in Torquay, Devon we can clearly see that the birthplace for Leontine is "Cornwallis Nova Scotia". I'm suspecting the transcriber tried to fit a square peg in a round hole and selected "Cornwall, England" from a drop down box. 

In a chat with John Reid, he asked Gemini what was written in that box in the image and Gemini came back with:

"The image appears to say:
Cornwallis
Nova Scotia
Let me know if you have any other images you need transcribed!"

This transcription error made it a bit of a challenge to find her initially since she should have been in Northumberland County, England instead of holidaying in Devonshire. I had initially discounted that index entry since it stated Cornwall and not Nova Scotia or Canada as her birth place. If it hadn't been for the kindness of a stranger who had a full subscription with 1921 census access on Findmypast to quickly check the image from the record for me I would never have found her. But this quirk also seems to indicate that the transcriptions on Ancestry originally came from the work done by Findmypast.

When it comes to viewing the images on Ancestry, if we want to see almost all the same images that are pointed to on Findmypast, we need to do a bit of work ourselves.

Screen capture of the top part of Ancestry's page from the 1921 England Census for Leontine Chipman, taken 14 Jan 2025.

When we look at the details page for Leontine Chipman and click on the image shown, we are brought to the page in the census with the details recorded for everyone at the location as of midnight 19 Jun 1921.

To view the other side of that page with the street address, registration district number, registration sub-district number, and enumeration district number we need to go to the next image. On Findmypast, this is the image they labelled as "Address". 

If you are like me and save any of the images you find about your kin to your computer, make sure you also save this one too.

You will also probably want to go to the first image of the image filmstrip for that Enumeration district to get the other details about the enumeration district and also the "series piece number" for your source citation. The series piece number is the number after the RG15 that was written on the page when it was archived at The National Archives.

Cover page for Registration District 272, Registration Sub-district 6, Enumeration District 30 & 31 with the RG and Series Piece Number written on the page.

What about the "Plan of Division" pages that were linked to on Findmypast? They are from RG114 at The National Archives. That takes a bit more effort to locate on Ancestry since they are stored a bit differently. On Ancestry we need to browse the images, pick the county we are interested, select the appropriate name of the registration district, and then select "Not Stated" as the Sub-registration district.

In the case of where Leontine was residing when the census took place, on that "Cover" page from the enumerator's book, we can faintly read "Newton Abbot" beside the number 272 as the registration district. Next we need to walk through the images to find the "Plan of Division" page for 272 number 6. On Ancestry's filmstrip, that was found on image 203 of 278. Finally we want to location the page for Enumeration District 30 and 31 which is located on images 255 and 256 where we learn the boundary descriptions of those two enumeration districts.

As for the maps of the registration districts provided by Findmypast as one of the "extra" images, those appear to be from The National Archives RG 18 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C16337741) but they don't seem to have been added to the Ancestry collection for the 1921 census. Using The National Archives site I as able to quickly browse through the descriptions to location registration district 272 to find that RG 18/1103 is a "Collage of Ordnance Survey map sheets cut, mounted and annotated to show the following registration districts as used for the 1921 census...District 272, sub-district 6: Torquay" (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C990371). Alas, I've also not been able to find these maps on sites other than Findmypast. So if you know of a site with the TNA RG 18/830-1465 collage of maps, please let me know!

Hopefully with the information I've provided, you will be able to better document in your tree on Ancestry all your kin who were in England, Wales, Channel Islands, or Isle of Man when that 1921 census was taken.

Have fun in your noble quest to learn more about your family lines!