Loyalist William How(e) of Kingston... Who Are Your Parents?

One of the many reasons I write these posts is to help me record my thoughts concerning research that either has me stumped or has been tricky to resolve. This post is about the former.

In my researching of The Fair Captive I was finally able to add the oldest son of Caleb How(e)¹ and Jemima Sawtelle, William. Based on various material I came across documenting the story of Jemima, it would appear that William was born about 1747.

Daniel Wait Howe, Howe Genealogies. This Volume Contains the Genealogy of John Howe of Sudbury and Marlborough, Massachusetts, Gilman Bigelow Howe, editor, (Haverhill, Massachusetts: Record Publishing Company, 1929), children of Caleb Howe and Jemima Sawtelle, p. 46; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/howegenealogiesb01howe/page/n7/mode/2up : accessed 27 May 2020).

Of course, once I recorded that information into my cousin-bait tree on Ancestry, hints started appearing for him including trees having him residing in what later became Kingston, Ontario, Canada. For those that know me, when it comes to my genealogy research one of my research mantras is "Trust know one, verify everything, and even if it's written in stone it might be wrong." So when I saw some people connecting William Howe to Caleb and Jemima Howe of Vermont as his parents I got very interested in finding out their sources and hopefully confirming (refuting would be OK also) that supposed connection.

The first possible clue from the Howe Genealogies is that William was a tory and went to Nova Scotia. That sounds like a Loyalist to me. But, much like his younger brother Caleb, my 5th great-grandfather, William appears to have fallen off the face of the Earth or at least disappeared from the United States of America. Even in Emma Lewis Coleman's work New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian War, Vol. 2 beyond stating William's age when captured and then the ransom paid by Colonel Schuyler nothing else is mentioned about William. So my usually method of following a person from cradle to grave isn't going to work. Instead I'm going to start with the William Howe that ended up in the Kingston, Ontario, Canada area and see if the records about him mention anything about his parents or clues are offered up by the names of his children.

Several of the trees had images for land petitions made by his children and wife. The bottom of the images they had a source description like this:

Image from the bottom of the microfilmed image from Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865), H Bundle (1806-1807), RG1 L3 Vol 226, petition 71; Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-2046, image 55.

From that I knew that the source of these images was from the Library and Archives "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" database and archived microform collection. With a bit of searching I was able to create a table of those names of interest and the details needed to find them in microfim (the page number was added after I found the petition):

Surname	Given Name(s)	Place	Year	Volume	Bundle	Petition	Page(s)	Reference	Microfilm
HOWE	Mathew	Kingston	1798	224A	H 4	81	607-614	RG 1 L3	C-2044
HOWE/VANORDER	Margaret	Kingston	1806	226	H 8	71	55-56	RG 1 L3	C-2046
HOWE/GALLOWAY	Margaret	Kingston	1807	226	H 8	99	158-159	RG 1 L3	C-2046
HOWE/BUCK	Eve	Kingston	1808	226	H 8	112	217-219	RG 1 L3	C-2046
HOWE/DENYLA	Jane	Kingston	1809	226	H 9	44	475-476	RG 1 L3	C-2046
HOWE	Peter	Kingston	1810	226A	H 9	85	649-652	RG 1 L3	C-2046
HOWE	George	Kingston	1811	226A	H 9	92	682-684	RG 1 L3	C-2046
HOWE	John W.	Kingston	1849	247	H 5	44	237-271	RG 1 L3	C-2101
HOWE	Daniel	Kingston	1797	224	H 3	135	119-122	RG 1 L3	C-2044
HOWE	Margaret		1797	224	H 3	57	840-841	RG 1 L3	C-2043

Some of the entries, such as Eve Howe/Buck, Jane Howe/Denyla, and John W. Howe, I've not confirmed are connected to the William Howe family since they don't reference William How(e) directly. Since I wasn't planning on going down the rabbit hole of completely documenting this William Howe family I haven't dug into those names. In each case I retrieved the multiple pages for each petition to see what clues were presented aside from the family connection. I also referenced William D Reid's book The Loyalists In Ontario to aid in my searching where we find William Howe listed along with his children that were mentioned in the Orders-in-Council records:

William D. Reid, The Loyalists in Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada, ( Lambertville , New Jersey: Hunterdon House, 1973), p.157, HOWE, William of Kingston; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/49231/: accessed 18 May 2020).

The petition for Margaret Howe/Vanorder was important since it established that Margaret was the daughter of Mathew Van order and the widow of William Howe. This will become important later on.

Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1763-1865, petition of Margaret Howe Widow of William Howe and Daughter of Mathew Vanorder, dated 24 Jan 1807; RG 1 L3, C-2046, images 55; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

The petition signed by Matthew Howe and Daniel Howe dated 15 Jul 1797 also provided a few clues about William:

• he died about 1795,
• he had joined the British Forces and did Garrison Duty in the Embodied Loyalists at New York, and
• he arrived in the province, now known as Upper Canada, in 1783.

Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1763-1865, Volume 224, "H" Bundle 3, 1797, petition 135, for Daniel Howe; RG 1 L3, C-2044, image 120; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

The separate land petition submitted in by his son Mathew in 1798 was interesting not from what was written but the response by the Land Board. In his petition he wrote:

"That your Petitioners Father served during the War as a Lieutenant of Embodied Loyalists and is Since deceased in this Country..."

Mathew even had statements from David Babcock and John Burnett attesting that William Howe served under Major Ward in Captain Hamilton's Company as a Lieutenant of Embodied Loyalists from the time of the Action of the Blockhouse. However, as you can see in the image below, the board didn't accept that proof his William's rank as a Lieutenant, "There must be better proof of W^m Howe's having been a Lieut".

Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1763-1865, Volume 224a, "H" Bundle 4, 1798, petition 81, for Mathew Howe; RG 1 L3, C-2044, image 614; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

Yes, even with his rank not accepted, the petition of Mathew gives another clue about William:

• he was at the "Action of the Blockhouse".

It didn't take too much digging to find this action for it seems it was the Battle of Bull's Ferry that took place in New Jersey in Bergen Township along the Hudson River opposite New York City on 20-21 Jul 1780. A stockade, the "Blockhouse", was held by 70 loyalists commanded by Thomas Ward and successfully held off the attacks by Brigadier General Anthony Wayne and his men. Could William have been made a lieutenant and placed in the chain of command of these men? Possibly, but I've not yet seen any documents such as an after action report that substantiates the claim. The story of "The Block House in Bergen Wood" was told by Dr. H. H. Burleigh in an address on 3 Mar 1965 to the Bay of Quinte Branch of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada.

Based on these petitions we have William Howe in the New York City area in 1780s and he has been acknowledged as a Loyalist.

What can I find in New York City for that time?

Knowing the name of his wife, Margaret Vanorder, I put the following information in to the search on Ancestry:

• Surname: Howe
• Father's Name: William Howe
• Mother's Name: Margaret
• Born: 1777
• Collection: United States

I was pleasantly surprised when I got results from the "U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989" collection for baptisms of several children: Mathew (born 1774, baptized 1775), Mary Magdalen (1776), Daniel (1778), Margareth (1780). The baptism of Mathew was particularly interesting due to one of the sponsors:

"Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989," database and images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 May 2020), entry for Matthew, child of William Howe and wife Margareth; citing New York City Lutheran, Volume 1, Book 85, p 517 [stamped], New York City, New York.

I wonder, could this Matthew Van Orden be related to Margareth? Could he be the Mathew Vanorder listed in Margaret Howe's land petition?

A bit more digging through the records I find what appears to be record for the marriage of William How and Margareth Van Orden on 24 Sep 1770.

"Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989," database and images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 May 2020), entry for William How and Margareth Van Orden, married 24 Sep 1770; citing Holland Society of New York; New York, New York; New York City Lutheran, Vol III, Book 87, p 103 [stamped].

As an aside, I also came across the baptism of their first son, Robert Albert, in that collection. What got me was the note above the entry, "married in September 1770 Who can help it?"

"Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989," database and images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 May 2020), entry for Robert Albert, child of William Howe and wife Margareth; citing New York City Lutheran, Volume 1, Book 85, p 495 [stamped], New York City, New York.

Unfortunately, Robert Albert Howe was buried on 9 Sep 1772.

Based on what I found in this collection and in the land petitions and and Land Boards of Upper Canada, 1765-1804 databases the children of William Howe and Margareth Van Orden that were born in New York appear to be:

• Robert Albert (1770-1772)
• Elizabeth
• Mathew (1774-)
• Mary Magdalen (1776-)
• Daniel (1778-)
• Margareth (1780-)
• William (1783-)

Sons Peter (1786-) and George, which I found via other trees and records, appear to have been born after the family left New York City. Keep in mind that I'm not researching the family so I haven't kept looking for death dates for those that left New York. However, it seems that Mary Magdalen and Margareth may have passed away in New York since I haven't found them named in land or other Loyalist claimant documents. The burial registrations for the New York Lutheran Church that Ancestry has end in 1775.

Can we find this family leaving New York?

The baptism record from 1783 for their son, William, holds a useful clue.

"Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989," database and images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 May 2020), entry for William, child of William Howe and wife Margareth; citing New York City Lutheran, Volume 1, Book 85, p 585 [stamped], New York City, New York.

It appears that the family was still in New York in Oct 18, 1783.

After a bit of searching and following the various leads when sources were provided I came across the "HMS Amphitrite, Capt. Robert Briggs" under Wallace Hale's Fort Havoc pages hosted by the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. There recorded, along with the other passengers, was a William Howe and family:

Name	Women	Ch. above 8 years	Ch. under 8 years
Howe, William	1	2	2

If you have gotten this far, you know that I like to find the source of the documents, and if at all possible, save the images to my computer. The transcription stated that the information came from the Amos Botsford papers. That led me to the "Finding aid no. 525 to the Amos Botsford and Family fonds" on Heritage. I don't know about you but manually reviewing 536 images for a single line is a bit of a drudge. Lucky for us that there is a subject matter index for the fonds and for 19 Oct 1782 it had "Return of men, women and children arrived at Annapolis from New York (the list gives names of the men, with numbers of women and children)." and it could be found on page 108-111. A quick hop and jump and on page 111 near the bottom I found a William Howe and family.

Return of Men, Women & Children arrived at Annapolis from New York 19th Octr 1782, p. 111, MG 23, D 4 - Finding aid no. 525 to the Amos Botsford and Family fonds, microfilm H-1687, image 280; digital images, Canadian Research Knowledge Network, Canadiana Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 27 May 2020).

Assuming that Elizabeth was born about 1772 (based on the gap between Robert and Mathew, and other trees on Ancestry), this would appear to be the right family consisting of William, his wife Margareth, Elizabeth and Mathew, and Daniel and William.

Only one problem!

If the baptism record for William Howe is correct then this isn't the family of William Howe and Margaret Van Orden. The family was still in New York City in 1782. Now it gets to be a challenge since there might be two Loyalist William Howe families floating around at this time in history in the New York area.

I next turned to the Loyalists landing page at Library and Archives Canada for ideas. The first place I checked was the Carleton Papers – Loyalists and British Soldiers, 1772-1784. After checking the various returned items one stood out:

Item: William HOW (27873)

Given Names(s): William

Surname: HOW

Gender: Male

Destination: Nova Scotia

Type of Document: Return of Loyalists

Date (yyyy/mm/dd) : 1782-09-22

Additional Information: LIST OF LOYALISTS FOR NOVA SCOTIA;WITH ONE WOMAN AND TWO CHILDREN

Place where the Document was Created: New York

Document Page Number: 5663 (2)

Fonds: British Headquarters Papers (Carleton Papers or American Manuscripts)

Microfilm: M-357

Reference: MG23 B1

Item Number: 27873

It is around the right time and place but the additional information only states with one woman and two children. We seem to be two children short. Regrettably, viewing this microfilm will have to wait since the M microfilms are only at Library and Archives Canada and it may be sometime before they reopen to the public.

However, is this referring to the other William How(e) that arrived in 1782? Might this be the family that is connected to the Caleb and Jemima Howe family and not the family that settled in the Kingston area?

I did find a William Howe/How of the New York Volunteers in the Loyalists in the Maritimes — Ward Chipman Muster Master's Office, 1777–1785 database at Library and Archives Canada. However, after viewing the record on Heritage in microfilm "Ward Chipman (senior and junior) fonds : C-9818" on image 426 it looks like it is written as "Wm Haws". But I can't discount it yet.

The next resource I checked was the Sir Frederick Haldimand (MG21) collection. The link to the index of Loyalists brought me to microfilm C-1475 on Heritage. It didn't take too much work to find the entries for How(e).

Name	Volume	Page	Film	Image	Notes
Howe, William	167	155h2	H-1654	1058	Sir William
Howe, William	167	156a	H-1654	1062	Sir William Howe
Howe, William	167	168	H-1654	1080	General How
Howe, William	167	353	H-1655	39	Refugees from New York at Sorell and Yamaska 25 Dec 1783
Howe, William	168	81	H-1655	196	Return of Disbanded Troops & Loyalists settled in Township No 1 Cataraqui Mustered 9th Oct 1784
Howe, Mrs.	166	161	H-1654	782	Dated 7 Dec 1783 at "Sorell" [Sorel, Quebec] signed by Will How

With much assistance from Lorine McGinnis Schulze's Olive Tree Genealogy post Finding a Loyalist in the Haldimand Papers (Loyalist Research Part 6) I was able to quickly determine which microfilms I needed to review on the Heritage site.

I knew I could discount the mentions of Sir William or General How but the other entries got my attention. Could they be the same William Howe family that settled in the Kingston area that we have been chasing?

I'm fairly certain that this is the family that we started with in Kingston.

Only one problem! (again)

And this is the really frustrating part of doing genealogy and family history research.

I'm still no closer to establishing that this William Howe that settled in Township No. 1 Cataraqui, now the Kingston area of Ontario, Canada, is the same person as the son of Caleb and Jemima (Sawtelle) Howe. Even worse, there may be another Loyalist William Howe family out there. It might be this other William Howe family that I need to be finding.

If anyone reading this can help me in the conundrum, please leave a comment. I'd like to hear from you.

Here is a list of some of the sources I consulted in addition to the ones I've mentioned or linked to in the body of this post:

• The Centennial Committee, The Centennial of the Settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, 1784-1884. The Celebrations at Adolphustown, Toronto and Niagara, with an Appendix., (Toronto, Ontario: Rose Publishing Company, 1885), p.196, entry for Wm. Howe; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cu31924028900475/page/n6/mode/2up : accessed 19 May 2020).
• "Herbert Clarence Burleigh fonds - Family files series - Howe." Supplied by Queen's University Archives, Kingston, Ontario. 2014; digital images, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/hcbhowe2/page/n1/mode/2up : accessed 19 May 2020).
• Isaac W. Hammond, editor, The State of New Hampshire. Miscellaneous Provincial and State Papers 1725-1800, Vol 18, (Manchester, New Hampshire: John B. Clarke, 1890), p.495, ransom of William Howe and sundry express submitted by Colonel Schuyler; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.ca/books?id=XfM7AAAAIAAJ : accessed 20 May 2020).
• Ontario Department of Lands and Forests : Loyalist List, microfilm C-2222; digital images, Canadian Research Knowledge Network, Canadiana Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 27 May 2020).
• The On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies - page for Loyal Refugee Volunteers History
• United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada website

---

1. The spelling of the name "Howe" varies in the early documents and I have seen it recorded as "How" and "Howe". From this point on, I will generally be using "Howe" unless specifically referring to a document with a different spelling.

Canadian War Diaries from the Second World War

With the 75th anniversary commemorating the end of the Second World War occurring this year more people are researching what happened to their ancestors and relatives that served during that war. Unlike the First World War, many of the personnel service records are not easily available to researchers due to privacy restrictions. For researching into those that served Canada during the Second World War I'll generally send people to the Second World War: 1939-1945 landing page on the Library and Archives Canada site as a starting point.

One often overlooked resource when researching the events that involved our men and women that served and fought in the Second World War are the War Diaries, Ships Logs, and Operations Record Books. Keep in mind that these are not the diaries of those that served but of the units and ships. You will often find mentions of officers but in these diaries and logs it is uncommon to find the enlisted personnel recorded in the pages. Unlike the First World War where the war diaries of the Canadian Expeditionary Force have been digitized, not all the Army war diaries from the Second World War have been digitized or even microfilmed. From the Library and Archives Canada page their guidance for searching states:

Second World War (1939-1945) and Korean Conflict (1950-1953)

References to War diaries (RG24-C-3) can be identified by using the Advanced Archives Search.

• In the pull down menu, select Finding Aid Number, and enter: 24-60
• Enter a keyword, for example, the unit name: "Royal Canadian Dragoons" or "Princess Patricia's"
• Some volumes are available on microfilm.
• Some of the microfilm reels have been digitized on our partner site Héritage.

Sounds almost simple doesn't it? It is, and yet, like most of our research, it often isn't. I'm going to walk you through a few examples.

First of all, you need to go to the Library and Archives Canada Enhanced Archives Search - Advanced page. Once there you need to instruct the search engine to search by Finding aid number 24-60 and also by the keyword of the regiment or unit you are interested in finding. In this case it is the unit of my grand-uncle Ronald McGregor Warrener who died on July 25, 1943 in Sicily, the 48th Highlanders.

Screen capture from Library and Archives Canada Enhanced Archives Search - Advanced with search terms of Finding aid number 24-60 and keyword 48th highlanders.

If everything works out, after you click the Submit button, you will get a list of results.

Screen capture with the results from the Library and Archives Canada Enhanced Archives Search - Advanced with search terms of Finding aid number 24-60 and keyword 48th highlanders.

In this case you see that there are several items with PDFs. The first for May 1944 to August 1945 and the second from August 1945 to October 1945. The PDFs contain the digitized regimental war diaries. However, the one that I'm interested in is #3, March 1942 to April 1944. There are no images or indications of PDF files so I will will need to click on that link to see what is available.

Screen capture from Library and Archives Canada record description for 48th Highlanders of Canada, Canadian Active Service Force, 1902/03-1944/04.

What you will find is a description of the item in the collection. For our purposes the "Conditions of access" is what we are interested in. In this case, there are no references to a microfilm and no links to a Online MIKAN item are found in the description. This means that we will need to visit Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa or have someone visit that place for us to view the actual regimental war diaries. Fortunately, back in 2015 I did just that.

Photo of the spine of the Regimental War Diary for the 48th Highlanders of Canada, May 43 to Apr 44

In addition to the weather report and the often boring daily accounts of unit business you some times find funny or interesting items in the diary, like what they thought of films "Saboteur", rated poor, and "Footlight Serenade", which was rated as good.

Regimental War Diary for the 48th Highlanders of Canada, 26-27 May 1943

Or, in the case of the entry for July 25, 1943, a very bad day with the death of Lt. R. F. Osler and 10 O.Rs. along with 2 missing and 38 wounded. It was through reading about that day in the book "Dileas: History of The 48th Highlanders of Canada 1929-1956" by Kim Beattie that I learned more about what happened to to "Pte. Red (R.M.) Warriner" and the rest of his brothers-in-arms of Dog Company.

Regimental War Diary for the 48th Highlanders of Canada, 25 Jul 1943

Sometimes, in the search for the war diaries, you will come across a description like this for the Headquarters of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade:

Screen capture from Library and Archives Canada record description for Headquarters, 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 1944/05-1944/06.

In the "Conditions of access" you will note that there are references to two microfilm reels, T-12331 and T-12332. Remember that one of the bullets in the guidance from Library and Archives Canada was that "Some of the microfilm reels have been digitized on our partner site Héritage." Let's open a new tab in our browser and head over to the Héritage site to search their catalogue. If you haven't used the Héritage site before, pop over to my post "Old School" Research With a Modern Twist" to learn about what that site has and how to search it. As you can see below, I've entered in the microfilm number T-12331 in quotes in the search box.

Screen capture from Héritage site looking for microfilm T-12331.

We see that there are two results returned when searching for T-12331.

Screen capture from Héritage site with search results when looking for microfilm T-12331.

Clicking on "War diaries : T-12331" will bring up the first image from that microfilm. You might have noticed that there are 1674 pages. There is no easy way to search the diary for mentions of any names since, unlike the T-1489 microfilm, it hasn't been indexed for a full-text search. You will need to flip through the various digitized pages to find the dates that you are interested in.

Since this is from the Headquarters of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade it has quite of bit of military information about the upcoming Operation Overlord, the landings on Normandy Beach. You will find various maps, unit boarding allocations for the landing crafts, and other details. There is also some interesting art work!

"Cover page for Signal Instructions, Appendix "D" 9 CDN INF BDE Operations Order No. 1, 18 May 1944.", War diaries : T-12331. Library and Archives Canada. Heritage microfilm T-12331, image 515.

As for the number of digitized microfilms that may pertain to the Second World War regimental war diaries hosted on the Héritage site, it has 1353 reels available in this collection. Unfortunately the metadata provided for the microfilms doesn't include the name of the units. So flipping through the microfilms will be time consuming. To learn what units may be on a specific microfilm go back to the Library and Archives Canada Enhanced Archives Search - Advanced page and enter in the Finding aid number 24-60 and for Any Keyword use the microfilm number. For example, on microfilm T-10561 the search results include:

• 7th Canadian Division - war diaries [textual record]. 1942-1943. Series.
• 7th Canadian Division - General Staff. 1942/06-1943/09
• 6th Canadian Division - Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General. 1942/06-1943/10
• 6th Canadian Division - Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General. 1944/01-1944/05

I have come across a few cases where this search doesn't return any results but it is better than nothing.

I hope that you have fun learning more about what happened in the Canadian units that your ancestor or relative served in during the Second World War.

Online Resources for Your Loyalist Research Project

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

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

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

Here are just some of the online resources I use:

United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada

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

Ancestry ($)

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

Library and Archives Canada

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

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

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

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

• Loyalist Reference Documents 
• Loyalist Reference Text

Nova Scotia Archives

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

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

FamilySearch

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

Internet Archive

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

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

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

War Office files at Library and Archives Canada

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following is a list of the various WO files:

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

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

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