Illustrated Historical Atlases of Ontario Counties Online

If you have been reading my blog for some time, you know how important land records in Ontario can be for locating where our ancestors lived. As part of any land record research we also want to "see" where they were on a map. Quite often I will make use of the numerous illustrated atlases of the counties of Ontario found digitized on the "In Search of Your Canadian Past: The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project" hosted by the McGill University.

Partial screen capture of the landing page for the In Search of Your Canadian Past: The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project site taken 2 Feb 2026.

This site has high quality scans of maps from books originally published in the late 1870s to early 1880s. Yet have you ever wondered where those maps came from and if there was anything more than just those maps in those books?

Wonder no longer!

Some of you might have seen a group of large books like this in your local library or archive if you live in Ontario.

Picture of the shelving holding the Illustrated Historical Atlases of Ontario held at the Nepean Centrepointe Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (taken 10 Feb 2026).

Here we see a picture of the various Illustrated Historical Atlases of Ontario Counties held at the Nepean Centrepointe branch of the Ottawa Public Library. They are available for anyone to peruse. During the joint Ottawa Public Library and Ottawa Branch of Ontario Ancestors in-person drop-ins, we've periodically used these books instead of going online to look at the maps. 

But what if you don't have access to a library or archive with those books? 

One of the projects announced in November 2024 by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, CRKN, the fine folks who bring us the Canadiana and Héritage, was an update to the Ontario Historical County Atlases. That project has now been completed.

We can find those recently digitized books online for the following counties (some counties are group together into a single book): 

Ontario county atlases:  

• Brant
• Carleton
• Elgin
• Frontenac, Lennox and Addington
• Haldimand
• Halton
• Hastings and Prince Edward
• Huron
• Lincoln and Welland
• Middlesex
• Norfolk
• Northumberland and Durham
• Ontario
• Oxford
• Peel 
• Perth
• Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry
• Wentworth
• York, township of West Gwillimbury and town of Bradford

The Illustrated Historical Atlases of the counties not only have the maps of the townships but also possibly the following sections that help us understand the history of the county:

• Early settlement details
• Military history of the units raised in the county
• Key officials at the time the atlas was created
• Histories of the villages, towns, and townships
• Biographical sketches of prominent people and families in the county 

Often we will also find a list of those who patronized or subscribed to the atlas at the time of its creation. We might learn where they resided in the township, village, or town, when they settled, where they were born, and even their occupation. However, not everyone paid to have their name included. So, your ancestor might not be listed.

Then there are the pictures of various notable buildings, farms, and even people. 

If you live on the property previously owned by James McLaurin located on Lot 21 of the 6th Concession in the Township of Osgoode, wouldn't it be interesting to see what it looked like in the late 1870s?

Illustrated historical atlas of the county of Carleton (including city of Ottawa) Ont. (Toronto : H. Belden, 1879), p. 5, sketch of the "Res. of Jas. McLaurin. Con. 6, Lot 21, Osgoode Tp., Ont.," [image 60 of 100] (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m07m03x85b1p : accessed 10 Feb 2026).

Of course there are the obligatory maps of the townships. But you might even find street maps of the villages and towns. 

Illustrated historical atlas of the county of Carleton (including city of Ottawa) Ont. (Toronto : H. Belden, 1879), p. 46, map of Stittsville as part of the Map of No. Gower page [image 84 of 100] (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m07m03x85b1p : accessed 10 Feb 2026). 

In addition to the county atlases, some of the county maps are found in the Dominion of Canada atlases:  

• Bruce County edition
• Grey County edition
• Kent County edition
• Lambton County edition
• Lanark County edition
• Simcoe County edition
• Victoria County edition
• Waterloo County edition

For the counties found listed in the Dominion of Canada atlases, generally you will find the maps of the townships towards the end of the book. But don't just stop after you find maps of the townships. In many cases you will come across a "Biographical Directory" of those who lived not only in the rural parts of the county but also the towns and villages. 

Illustrated atlas of the Dominion of Canada [Victoria County edition] (Toronto : Belden & Co., 1881), Biographical Directory of Victoria County Subscribers, p 3 [image 179 of 180], Ops Township, Alexander McKinnon  (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m2025000032wv5b : accessed 10 Feb 2026).

Above is the entry for my 3rd great-grandfather, Alexander McKinnon, who lived in Ops Township in Victoria County. If I didn't already have this additional information, now I have a starting point not just for locating any land records but also when and where he was born, and when he came to Upper Canada. 

Just note that this directory is of subscribers, i.e. those who paid to have their name listed. That means not every person will be mentioned in the directory.

 

Even better, these books have been made full text searchable. When I typed in "McKinnon" into the search box, two matches appeared. One of them was the page that has the clipping shown above found almost at the end of the book. Of course, the accuracy of the search depends on the quality of the images. That means we may have to actually read what is on the pages on not just rely on searching for names.

 

Finally, you might have notice that not all the counties in Ontario have been digitized. Only those atlases held in the collection of the McGill University Libraries were included in this project. The maps on The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project for several counties, such as Renfrew, came from material held by Library and Archives Canada. We can see the list of where the maps came from on the The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project Primary Source Material page. 

Maybe CRKN might consider asking permission from Library and Archives Canada or the publishers of the reprints to also digitize those books that aren't already found on Canadiana?

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.

1931 Census of Canada - Success Stories

It has been an interesting and challenging time for all involved with the public release of the 1931 Census of Canada by Library and Archives Canada on June 1, 2023. What started with joy and happiness quickly turned to sadness and frustration for the genealogy and family history community as issues on the Library and Archives Canada site prevented many from even trying to view the images. Yet I'm not going to harp on those issues since I've already done so in my post "1931 Census of Canada - A Release Fiasco?" Instead I'm going to share my own success stories and some tips on how I found the kin I was looking for.

Screen capture of the Library and Archives Canada 1931 Census Collection Search page on 3 Jun 2023 at 12:23 p.m. ET.

My goal was to to find all four of my grandparents in this census. I knew that they were all alive and residing in Canada by the end of 1930. So, in theory, this goal should be achievable. Having a goal or task being achievable is one of the elements I mentioned in being Genealogy SMART, a post from July 2019:

• Specific: I want to find my four grandparents in the 1931 Census of Canada.
• Measurable: By the end of the process I should be able to count how many of the grandparents I have found. Hopefully all four of them.
  
• Achievable: Since the images of the 1931 Census of Canada have been released, I believe it should be possible to find my grandparents.
• Relevant: Finding them in the census will help me understand where they lived and how they were doing, economically, in 1931.
• Timely: The census was just released and is available for our use.

First of all, since the images of the 1931 Census of Canada aren't yet searchable by personal details such as names or street address I had to do some work ahead of time to learn exactly where they were living. I just can't plunk their names in a search engine and have the computer spit out the answers. It's going to take a bit of work on our part. The more work we do before even looking at the images should save us time in the long run.

All of my grandparents decided that they would be living in moderate to large cities in 1931 to make it a bit more challenging for me. I know that others who have also had success stories have been able to very quickly find their kin since those folks were living in rural areas or small towns and villages.

Here are family groupings for my grandparents, along with what I discovered in this step. Note that some of this information was gathered while actually in the searching for the census records. I really should have done all this work ahead of time!

• Nathanial and Winnifred (nee Warrener) McKinlay
• They were married in 1930 in Toronto
• In the 1932 city directory of London, Ontario they reside at 579 Colborne Street¹
• Donald McMullen
• He had not yet married Frances Howe
  
• In the 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces of Canada in the Winnipeg South Centre district he was living with his parents Louis Norman and Gertrude Anne (nee Martin) McMullen at 521 Toronto Street, Winnipeg²
• In the 1932 city directory of Winnipeg, Manitoba no Donald McMullen was found listed but his father is recorded as "McMullen L N  druggist Wpg Drug h 9, 796 Wolseley"³
• Frances Howe
• She had not yet married Donald McMullen
• In the 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces of Canada in the Winnipeg South Centre district she was living with her parents Joseph and Annie (nee Chipman) Howe at  what appears to be 72 Walnut Street, Winnipeg⁴. However, the 1927 city directory gives their address as 72 Chestnut Street⁵.
• In the 1932 city directory of Winnipeg, Manitoba no Frances Howe was found but her father is recorded as "Howe Joseph E asst prof Univ Man h 72 Chestnut"⁶

You might notice that I reference the 1932 city directories. Most directories weren't published the same year the information was collected so I will often use the following year's directory.

Also I recorded the district (in some cases when I was getting frustrated that I couldn't find them in the 1931 Census) they we found in for the prior census closest to the 1931 Census. This might help me figure out where I should start my looking in the 1931 Census, especially when it comes to large cities.

Since I'm dealing with moderate to large cities I also used Google Maps to place each street address on a map. This became important as I worked my way through the images.

I thought I was ready to begin my search on June 1st, 2023...but the Library and Archives Canada site had another opinion. But I did have a workaround. It was a bit more work but doable.

I started with Nathaniel and Winnifred McKinlay. Based on where I found them on the map I started with the assumption that they were in the London district and not Middlesex East or Middlesex West. Via another site I had a possible lead that the address, 579 Colborne Street, might be in sub-district 17 so I started there. After scanning the eighteen pages I didn't find them.

This is where using Google Maps became useful. With 579 Colborne Street pinned on the map I had Google Maps give me directions to the first address in sub-district 17, 290 Cheapside.

Screen capture from Google Maps for directions from 290 Cheapside Street to 579 Colborne Street in London, Ontario.

Why map the directions? As I came across the next sub-district I could put in an address from one of the pages to see if I was getting any closer to my target address. I might even jump ahead a few sub-districts and see about getting directions. By doing this I could also figure out how the sub-districts were roughly laid out.

Since I was using a workaround method which was a bit slower than just clicking the next image it did take me a bit of time. But after about 178 images I found my Dad's parents, Nathaniel and Winnifred (nee Warrener) McKinlay on page 1 in sub-district 29!

1931 census of Canada, Ontario, district 127 (London), sub-district 29 (London City Ward 4), p. 1, dwelling 12, family 14, household of Nathaniel McKinley; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada (https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census2/index1931 : accessed 1 Jun 2023).

Since I'm a persistent (some may call it stubborn) researcher, I tried my luck finding my grandmother Frances Howe. This was a bit harder since I hadn't written down in my pre-search notes the district name from the 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces of Canada yet. 

This bit me big time!

I spent way too much time looking in the wrong districts because of an assumption. I first looked in Winnipeg North and Winnipeg North Centre since I assumed that the Assiniboine River would be the district boundary. But when I plotted the various address I was seeing in the sub-districts for those districts they were all too far away from 72 Chestnut Street and getting further away. That's when I clued in to look at the 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces of Canada all thanks to a suggestion by Dave Obee in his CanGenealogy 1931 census research tips page.

They were in the Winnipeg South Centre district in 1926! Once I started getting directions from 72 Chestnut Street to addresses for the sub-districts in that district plotted on the map everything started to work out much, much better. Relatively quickly I was able to find Frances and her parents.

1931 census of Canada, Winnipeg, district 189 (Winnipeg South Centre), sub-district 51 (Winnipeg Ward 1), p. 7, dwelling 58, family 59, household of Joseph Howe; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada (https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census2/index1931 : accessed 2 Jun 2023).

It was getting late, I was tired, and I'd already had enough challenges on the launch day while also providing guidance and tips to others via several Facebook groups. So I decided to leave looking for my other grandparent, Donald McMullen, until the daylight hours of June 2nd.

At around 11 am on June 2, 2023 Ancestry released their copies received from Library and Archives Canada and posted the images in their "1931 Census of Canada" browse only collection and the game suddenly changed for me. 

Screen capture from Ancestry's "1931 Census of Canada" collection search page found at https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/.

I didn't have to deal with a slow or non-functioning LAC site. Since Ancestry had already gone through the experience of hosting the images of the 1950 Federal Census of the United States of America I figured they could deal with any amount of traffic created by Canadian researchers.

Using all the tricks I'd learned I knew I should be able to find Donald and his parents in short order.

I decided I'd first plot both where Frances Howe, his future wife, and Donald McMullen lived since I could possibly use her address as starting point.

Screen capture from Google Maps for directions from 72 Chestnut Street to 796 Wolseley Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

They are practically neighbours! According to the map, they were about a minute walk apart.

In just a few minutes I found the household of Donald's parents, Louis and Gertrude (nee Martin) in the next sub-district, number 52, from Frances Howe and her parents.

1931 Census of Canada, Winnipeg, district 189 (Winnipeg South Centre), sub-district 52 (Winnipeg Ward 1), p. 12, dwelling 110, family 140, household of Louis McMullen; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry Operations, Inc., Ancestry.ca (https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/ : accessed 2 Jun 2023).

I had actually completed my goal of finding my grandparents in the 1931 Census of Canada.

I won't bore you with the challenges I had finding Elizabeth (nee Murdoch) McKinlay, my great-grandmother, in London, Ontario. But I can tell you that it is really, really important to be not distracted when looking at the images. I missed her at least two times!

The one I dreaded finding was the household of George Kaye and Henrietta (nee McGregor) Warrener, my great-grandparents, in Toronto. With Toronto being so large I thought it would be a near impossible task. Yet I found them in about 40 minutes (again a wrong assumption got me for about 10 minutes of that time).

I still have a few great-grandparents to find but now that I have a working method it shouldn't be to much of a challenge (I know, Murphy's Law is just waiting in the wings).

My tips to you:

• Do your searches when you won't get distracted!
  
• Have a plan.
• Gather as much information about where the person was living around 1931 
• Use city directories for 1931 and 1932
• The 1935 Voters' Lists might help if you believe they stay in the same home since 1931
  
• Use the prior census to see what district and even sub-district that street or place was listed in. The person might not even be in Canada at that time but knowing the district and sub-district may help reduce the number of pages to look at in a large city.
  
• For a large city, make use of Google Maps to help figure out if you are getting closer to the street address you want to find
  
• Use the images from Ancestry. Their images load so much faster than the copies on the LAC site. Plus their filmstrip found at the bottom of their image screen makes it a breeze to move to the next sub-district
  
• Don't get stressed out trying to find your kin. Genealogy and family history research is supposed to be fun. You might even think about waiting until a searchable name index is available.

Good luck in your searches!

---

1. Vernon Directories Limited, Vernon's City of London (Ontario) Directory for the Year 1932 (Hamilton, Ontario: Vernon Directories Limited, 1932),  370, entry for McKinlay Nathnl (Winnifred). 

2. 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces of Canada, Manitoba, district 17, sub-district 19, Winnipeg, p. 29, dwelling 219, family 366, Donald McMullen; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 30 Apr 2020); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm T-27399.

3. Henderson Directories Limited, Henderson's Winnipeg Directory 1932 (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Henderson Directories Limited, 1932), 935, entry for McMullen L N.

4. 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces of Canada, Manitoba, district 17, sub-district 21, Winnipeg, p. 7, dwelling 71, family 75, Frances Howe; RG 31; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca : accessed 5 Jan 2021); citing Library and Archives Canada.

5.  Henderson Directories Limited, Henderson's Winnipeg Directory 1927 (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Henderson Directories Limited, 1927), 943, entry for Howe Joseph E.

6.  Henderson Directories Limited, Henderson's Winnipeg Directory 1932 (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Henderson Directories Limited, 1932), 817, entry for Howe Joseph E.

Finding on the Ground: An Urban Address

In my various "Finding on the Ground" series of posts the one type of property I kept glossing over were the lots in the urban areas. I kept ignoring those places for only one reason...it can be a challenge locating the records on the Ontario Land Property Records Portal, AKA OnLand. However, in this post I will walk you through the process and resources I used to find a lot in Galt, now part of Cambridge, Ontario.

The initial question was posted in the Ontario Ancestors group on Facebook:

"I know of a house in Cambridge (Galt) that I would like the Concession and Lot number.
Once I have that I know how to retrieve information off of Onland.ca, I just need the actual Concession/lot.  How do I find this please."

After a bit of back and forth to get the specific address and the person of interest (just a reminder of the importance of providing detailed information in your questions: Asking Good Questions; Creating Good Answers) I learned the following details:

• The modern address in Galt is: 46 Park Hill Rd (West of the Grand River) in Cambridge, Ontario.
• She is looking for information about the land transactions involving William John Millican since he own that property around 1883.
  

And so the adventure began!

Step 1 - Where is it now?

The first step I took was to search the OnLand Property Address in the virtual Waterloo Land Registry Office (58). Why that LRO? I didn't know which office was responsible for Galt or Cambridge so I just typed in Galt, it's shorter than typing Cambridge, in the "Find your Land Registry Office" box and OnLand informed me that it was in "WATERLOO (LRO 58)"

For the address I initially typed "46 Park Hill" but no results were returned. So I just removed the space between "Park" and "Hill". Sometimes you do have to play around with the name of the street to get the "right" name in OnLand. Eight results appeared with almost all of them for 46 Parkhill Road West Cambridge found on Lot 1 in Plan 470 of Cambridge. But there was also a 46 Parkhill Road East. 

Partial screen capture of the Address Search results for 46 Parkhill in Waterlook (LRO 58) on OnLand.

So which one is it?

I started with an assumption that the 46 ParkHill Road West was the one I wanted so I next switched to the Property Map feature on OnLand and searched by the street name "Parkhill". Three possible streets were listed: PARKHILL CRT, PARKHILL ROAD, and PARKHILL ROAD EAST. Since I didn't see a "PARKHILL ROAD WEST" listed I selected just "PARKHILL ROAD". 

Screen capture of "Search by Street" for Parkhill in Waterloo (LRO 58) on OnLand.

It looks like I choose wisely since that road is west of the Grand River.

I then zoomed out on that map. Just a word to the wise, it does take a few seconds for OnLand to redraw the map so be patient and take it slowly. 

It looked to me that Park Hill Road West might be within Concession 11 possibly on lots 9, 10, or 11 based on the other lot notations nearby. The map also seems to indicate that it is "WGR" (West of Grand River) so it could be within lot 1 or 2 WGR. So we still have some work to do.

Step 2 - Historical Abstract/Index Books

Next it was off to the Historical Books section for the virtual Waterloo Registry Office.

Normally I would browse these books but since I have a plan number from the address search I searched for Plan 470. Amazingly only one result was returned. Unfortunately it seemed like the instruments start from 1905 and I'm looking for property from around 1883. Yet there are still some very useful clues found if I pay attention. On the first page it says "James Patterson's Sy" and the next states "James Patterson Survey" at the top. On the third page it has written near the top "From 10 in 11th Con"

At this point in my research, since I was doing this on a Saturday and it was approaching 6 p.m., I no longer could use OnLand since they shutdown access to these resources at 6 p.m. on Saturday. GRRR!

I decided to go to the "Make a Topographic Map" site from the Ontario Government. Under the Navigation option in the top menu bar I selected Search and then Address as the type of search. There I typed "46 Park hill road west, cambridge" (without the quotes) and the map automagically zoomed in to the location. If I had typed "46 parkhill road west, cambridge" this site was actually smart enough to suggest "46 Park Hill Road West, Cambridge". But I did find that I had to state "road" as part of the address. The "west" was optional since it gave suggestions for the full address.

From there I zoomed in until I spotted faintly written clues like "LOT 3 WEST OF GRAND RIVER CON 11" AND "LOT 2 WEST OF GRANT RIVER CON 11". Looking at what looks to be boundary lines it would seem that "46 Park Hill Rd W" lies within Lot 2 West of Grand River, Concession 11. Again, that is a guess but it seems to match the note from the plan documents.

Next it was off to FamilySearch to look in their copies of the Abstract Index Books found under "Canada, Ontario, Waterloo" for Galt.

Looking on FamilySearch in the Abstract Index Books under "Canada, Ontario, Waterloo" for Galt (v. 1 & 2) I come across in Volume 1 of the Galt books for the "Town of Galt" a page for "Subdivision Lot No. 2 Concession XI West of Grand River: Sometimes called North Halves of Lots Nos. 10 and 11" at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-T3LM. The details are found on the bottom half of that digitized page. The instruments start in 1841 and go to 1863. Much later on in that same digitized set of books I see "Subdivision Lot No. 2 West of Grand River Conn XI. Sometimes called North halves of Lots Nos. 10 & 11" (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-TS7M) and those instruments go from 1866 to 1877. That appears to be continuation of the first page but found in Volume 2 of the Galt books. Unfortunately the later volumes for Galt aren't on FamilySearch.

Since I was stuck on FamilySearch I had to wait until OnLand opened up for online business at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

Back on OnLand within the Historical Books for the Waterloo LRO (58) I filtered the township/municipality on "Galt". I noticed that there are books labelled 1, 2, 3, 1A, 2A, etc. There was even a Book 2 which had the description "SUBDIVISION 2". So I wondered if they were the volume numbers seen when looking in the FamilySearch Abstract Index Books for Galt. A quick glance and it seemed like they were. Towards the start of some of the books an index could be found (woohoo!) so I checked the first several pages for each of the books and in Book 3A on image 2 I saw "James Patterson's Survey of Pt. 10 Con XI W.G.R. (470)" and it looks like it started around folio [page] 427. That looked really promising based on what was found recorded for Plan 470. Book 3A only went up to page 220 but the images for Book 3B started at page 221 so I started looking there. Page 427 started at image 414 but I didn't see James Patterson's Survey mentioned there so I went to the next image, 415, and there was "James Patterson's Survey of Part of Lot No. 10 Con XI W.G.R". 

It would seem that each folio is made up of two images, a top and a bottom section. There was Lot No. 1 but the entries were from 1884 to 1889 and I didn't see any Millican's mentioned. But in one of the columns it stated "Cont. on page 431". Next it was off to find page 431 stamped in the upper right corner and it was found on image 422. On the second image from page 431 (image 423) there was "Lot No. 1 James Patterson's Survey (Cont. from 427.).

Extract from OnLand's Waterloo (LRO 58), Abstract/Parcel Register Book, for Galt, Book 3B, image 423 of 446 for Lot No. 1 of James Patterson's Survey continued from p. 427.

What do I see but a B & S, instrument 8227, on 14 Mar 1890 and registered 18 Mar 1890, with the grantor being James Patterson et ux and the grantee listed as W.J. Millican.

Keep in mind that these books for Galt are a real mess when it comes to how the abstracts were recorded since the top of the page stated "Lot No. 11 Concession X" but we have other lots apparently not on that concession listed on the same page.

Step 3 - Ordering

The next challenge might be to get a copy of that B&S instrument, no. 8227. However, a copy isn't available on FamilySearch since they only have the Land Record copy books up to 1875. This means ordering the document from OnLand and I've written how to do that in my post "Finding on the Ground: Ordering from OnLand".

The first step is to "create" a registration number using a prefix code and the instrument number. To find that prefix code I needed to click on the "correct prefix and range" link found on the "Instruments, Plans and Evidence" page accessed from the OnLand Documents page. That link brings us to the ServiceOntario Prefixes and Cross-References page. Opening up Waterloo LRO 58 there is a PDF link for the Instrument Prefix List for Waterloo. Scrolling through the PDF I see that there is a "Galt" entry which covers the time period of 1853 to 1955 and instrument numbers 1 to 55023. That look to be the right place, years, and instrument numbers so the prefix code associated with that instrument number should be "D". Combining the prefix code just identified and the instrument number of 8227 I get a registration number "D8227". This was the only easy part of the whole process!

At this point, if this was my family, I could place the order for $3 plus tax. I might even order some of the other documents mentioning W. J. Millican.

Wrapping it up

I will gladly admit that I really do dislike trying to find the transactions which took place in urban environment. Urban areas can be a really challenge due to issues such as changing boundaries, going from concession and lots to plans or sections, and street names being changed. Of course, how the registrations for Galt are recorded didn't make it any more enjoyable. It turned out that the note from Plan 470 which stated "SURVEY James Patterson" was key to finding William John Millican's property without spending hours looking through all the books. So pay attention to the whole page and surrounding pages for potential clues!

Yet don't give up when looking for the land records of those who had property in urban environments. It is a bit more challenging that those simple concessions and lots but just a rewarding.