Finding LAC's Upper Canada Land Petitions

Recently a colleague passed on a message they received where someone was being frustrated with trying to use find and use the Upper Canada Land Petitions found on the Library and Archives Canada site. They were annoyed in part due to the changes that LAC has made to their site over the past several years, something I could completely understand. I provided a bit of guidance but I also thought that a blog post might also be helpful for others.

The first challenge is figuring out how to search for those Upper Canada Land Petitions in the first place.

There are two approaches.

The first is to scroll down the Library and Archives Canada home page to the "Most requested" section and, in the "Collection" column, select my favourite page on the LAC site, "A to Z research tools and guides".

Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada "A to Z research tools and guides" page with "petitions" entered into the Filter items text box.

In the screen capture above, I've already typed in the "Filter items" box on the "A to Z research tools and guides" page the word "petitions". We can see only two results are returned, one for the Land Petitions of Lower Canada, and the other being Land Petitions of Upper Canada. When we click on the"Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" link, we are brought to the advanced search page of LAC's Collection search system.

Screen capture of Library and Archive's Canada "Collection search" advanced view page with the search limited to "Genealogy" and the Collection to "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865".

Here we can see that two of the search boxes have already been filled in for us. The first is that we are only searching the "Genealogy" collections. The second, and this is the important one, the only collection to be searched is the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865".

Alternately, on the Library and Archives Canada home page we can click on the green "Search the collection" button that is so prominently visible.

That brings us to the "Search Library and Archives Canada's collections" page. Towards the top of the page we find the search box to do a Collection search. Before we actually do a search, we need to click on the Advanced search link. I've circled it on the screen capture of that search box found on the page.

Doing that brings us to the same screen we saw when we clicked on the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865" on the "A to Z research tools and guides" page. Yet there is one more step we need to do.

Screen capture of Library and Archives Canada Collection search advanced search view with the "Collection" item circled.

I've circled the Collection search drop-down box where we can select one of the many databases to only search in LAC's collections. We want to find and select "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865" from this ever growing list of topic specific databases.

It really doesn't matter which way we get to the search screen with the correct database collection to search. I personally prefer using the "A to Z research tools and guides" page in the hopes that one day it won't bring initially me to the search screen but to a topic page with details of what is available. That topic page does exist but we have to get to it in a round about manner at this time.

However, at this time we can just type in the name of the person we are searching for in the Upper Canada Land Petitions collection. We might also add in the place of registration but I often just start with just the name

In this example, I've search for my 4th great-grandfather, Alexander Fraser, and have included the word military since I know that he settled in the Perth Military Settlement when he came to Upper Canada. 

Screen capture of the first two search results looking for the keywords "alexander fraser military" (without quotes) in the "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865 collection with the Library and Archives Canada Collection search system.

There are a few things to note in the above screen capture. The first is if you want to change the search parameters then use the "Modify search" button. LAC seems to have fixed the quirk with using the browser's back button and it not keeping the search details you filled in. However, I find that "Modify search" button always works so I recommend using that button to make any changes to your search criteria.

The next is that in the search results we see a question mark followed by a link to "Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763 to 1865". This is the link to the topic page associated with this database. That page is still in the old format and will be moving to the new look and feel sometime in the future. This page is very important for us. Not only does it give some background details about how and why the petitions were created but it also has the all important link to the digitized copies of the petitions found within the old "Upper Canada Land Petitions - Microform digitization" page.

Although the petition details can be seen in the result list, we should still click on the name to get to the item detail page like I did for the entry of my Alexander Fraser:

Screen capture of the item details section for the Alexander Fraser found in Library and Archives Canada RG 1 L3, vol. 421, p. 64a.

Again we see a link to the topic page as the "Help page".

The important details for our purposes are found on the "Reference" line. There it states his name can be found within the RG 1 L3 series in volume 421 on page 64a. Just as importantly, that document is found on microfilm C-2739.

From that help page we know that we can go to the "Upper Canada Land Petitions - Microform digitization" page and look for the microfilm in that list.

However, if we are lucky, the microfilm might also be available for viewing from home in the "Petitions for land grants and leases, 1791-1867" collection on FamilySearch. I wrote "if we are lucky" since not all the microfilms from Library and Archives Canada are viewable from home on FamilySearch. However, I have created a PDF file of a spreadsheet I use that lists the LAC microfilms with links to the digitized microfilms on FamilySearch. Personally, if I can use the digitized microfilm on FamilySearch to locate the document I will. Not only because I find the FamilySearch image viewer easier to use, but also that the microfilms in this collection have been added to the Full-Text Search system on FamilySearch.

Regardless of how we are looking at the digitized images from microfilm, we want to pay attention to the information added at the bottom of the images.

Page reference information found at the bottom of the image from the Library and Archives Canada digitized microfilm C-2739, "Canada Land Petitions, Perth Military Settlement (RG 1, L 3, Vol. 420), p. 14b.

Most of the time we find the key information that is mentioned in the "Reference" line from the Library and Archives Canada item detail page for the person. Of course, sometimes that information is missing or hidden. If that happens, check the images before or after the one we are looking at. We will likely have to leap through the digitized images to find the correct volume and/or bundle.

Then we will want to start paying attention to the top corners of the pages since that is where we will find the page numbers.

Fairly quickly we should be able to find the page 64a in the "RG 1, L 3, Vol.421" for my Alexander Fraser I used in the example. Below is the image I came across on FamilySearch since microfilm C-2739 is viewable from home.

Upper Canada Land Petitions, Bundle Perth Military Settlement, RG 1 L3, vol. 421, petition 64, p. 64a, imaged, “Petitions for land grants and leases, 1791-1867”, FamilySearch, image group number 8630352 > image 491 of 1130 (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H4-79VZ-P: accessed 3 Apr 2026); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-2739.

Of course, the entry on the page that is on the fold is the one for my Alexander Fraser. Isn't that always the case!

The Perth Military Settlement is a bit different from other petitions in this collection from Library and Archives Canada since we don't find the individual petitions made by the potential settlers.

When it comes to these petitions, there are often several pages in the petition. I recommend that you save all the pages for a petition to your computer for safe keeping and so that you don't have to do this every single time you want to look at the petition again.

 

[Updated: 10 Jun 2026 with link to a PDF of the LAC Upper Canada Land Petitions microfilms found on FamilySearch] 

Ontario Assessment Rolls and the Militia

A little while back, someone posted a query in one of the Facebook groups that deal in Ontario, Canada genealogy. It was a simple question that was interesting to explore:

"I have a tax assessment roll from 1864 and along with it is a militia roll. Can someone explain what that is please."

Westmeath Township, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CV-25P6 : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 23, Militia Roll for Westmeath.

When a question like this is posted, I always like to look at the pages and even years before for clues. 

I just happened to realize that this image was probably from the assessment rolls made available in a digitized format on FamilySearch. Otherwise, I would have prompted the original poster for the source. I want to reminder folks to always state the source of an image in their queries so that others can also find it and other possible related documents.

What we find for the first page for 1864 assessment of Westmeath Township is a list of names, ages, and details about the property.

Westmeath Township, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1834-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CV-2R7F : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 1.

That is what I expected to see.

In the 1863 assessment we don't see those Militia columns. So what gives?

Also, what is that "First Class Service", "Second Class Service", and "Reserve"?

Over the past few years I've learned that understanding the law as it has been passed by the various legislatures can often answer many questions when it comes to government created forms.

In this case we need to look at "An Act respecting the Militia", 27 Vict., Cap 2. This act was assented to on October 15, 1863. There we find the definitions for those First Class Service, Second Class Service, and Reserve:

2. The Militia shall consist of all the male inhabitants of the Province of the age of eighteen years or upwards and under sixty, not exempted or disqualified by law.

3. The Militia shall be divided into three classes, to be called respectively first class Service Men, second class Service Men and Reserve Men : the first class Service Men shall be those of eighteen years of age and upwards, but under forty-five years, who are unmarried Men or widowers without children, and the second class Service Men shall be those between the ages last aforesaid who are married Men or widowers with children, — and the Reserve Men shall be those of forty-five years of age and upwards, but under sixty years.

We even find the exemptions in section 4 of the act.

Why, as genealogists and family historians, should we care about these details? Knowing which class a man has been assigned to can provide clues as to their marital status and if they have any children.

But why did we not have these militia columns in previous years?

Well, in section 6 the act states for service enrolment in Upper Canada (section 10 covers Lower Canada):

6. The mode of enrolment of the Militia shall, in Upper Canada, be as follows, that is to say; — the Assessor or Assessors for each Municipality in Upper Canada shall, annually, commencing with the year one thousand eight number and sixty-four, and at the same lime when they are engaged in taking the Assessment of real and personal property in their respective Municipalities, include in their Assessment Roll, the names and residences of all male persons in their respective Municipalities, between the ages of eighteen and sixty years; and they shall prepare three additional columns in such Assessment Roll, which shall be headed respectively "First Class Service Militia Roll,'" "Second Class Service Militia Roll" and "Reserve Militia Roll,"...

So it seems it wasn't until the 1864 assessments that this started.

What we also need to remember is that not every assessor recorded the information the same way on the forms. For the 1864 assessment of the Township of Westmeath, we've already seen that the assessor just wrote a "F", "S", "R", or a place in the columns and added all the men who didn't seem to own land to a separate list. 

For the 1864 assessment of the Township of Enniskillen in Lambton County we see that the names are recorded in the columns and there might be more than one name recorded for a property.

Enniskillen, Lambton, Ontario, Canada, "Canada, Ontario Tax Assessment Rolls, 1852-1899,"; database with digital images, FamilySearch, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-X3CK-3173 : accessed 29 Apr 2024), 1864, p 31.

So make sure you pay attention to how the assessor actually completed the forms.

Additionally, depending on the assessor, there may be other sorts of information recorded on the forms, especially on the pieces of paper at the end of the assessment rolls. So always check the end of each year's assessment.

Finally, if you want to know which Ontario assessment rolls have been digitized by FamilySearch, there is a simple query you can use to search the FamilySearch Catalog:

Screen capture of the FamilySearch Catalog search page with titles: assessment, subjects: taxation, keywords: canada ontario, Availability: Online.

• Titles: assessment rolls
• Subjects: taxation
• Keywords: canada ontario
• Availability: Online

Just keep in mind that not all places will have the assessment rolls on FamilySearch. Many townships and municipalities still have them only available in paper or microfilm format at a local archive or genealogy or historical society. So if you can't find the township listed on FamilySearch then check with the organizations local to that township.

An Anglophone's Tips for Searching Ancestry's The Drouin Collection: Quebec Vital & Church Records

Recently I spent a week delving into the "Quebec Vital & Church Records" within The Drouin Church and Vital Records collection on Ancestry. This collection was originally created by the Institut Généalogique Drouin and has been made available to Ancestry subscribers. It can also be found at GenealogyQuébec. Some archives and libraries may have free access to the GenealogyQuébec site. However, owning to the fact that I don't have a subscription to GenealogyQuébec¹ and since libraries frown upon you staying until the wee hours of the night I've been using the Ancestry collection since I already have a subscription with them.

This was part of a personal research project to learn more about my late uncle's life partner's family. This paternal branch of her family lines of the Shirlow and Rapple/Rappel/Rappell was my first real deep dive into these records and it has been quite a learning experience. As an Anglophone with just a barely passing knowledge of French it has been interesting, frustrating, and yes, fun. Here are some of the lessons I can pass on to you to hopefully make searching these records a bit less painful.

Screen capture from the image presented by Ancestry for Saint Edward Anglican Church (Montréal, Quebec, Canada), Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968, "1916 Parish Register,"  marriage of James Shirlow and Sarah Rappell, 22 Feb 1916; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Jul 2019).

The Records

Keep in mind that these are church records. The majority of the records deal with recording church rites such as baptisms, marriages, and burials. In some cases they will also record the date of birth and death but there are no guarantees. In many of the records I've been looking at they also give the name of the parents, the father's occupation, and the mother's maiden surname. Burial records may also provide you with the spouse's name to help you figure out if this is the right person in your tree, and their age at death. Burial records for the women will often be recorded under their maiden surname along with their husband's name.

Language Challenges

Although the Shirlow and Rapple lines are of English speaking Irish descent some of the parish records were in French. As I was reading through some of the records the stuff I learned in my primary and high school French classes slowly came back to me. If your French language skills are as rust as mine (or worse) here are a few tips.

1. Google Translate is a helpful resource in figuring out some of the words. It is not perfect though and will have some challenges but it will often give you the gist of what is written.
2. Write down on a piece of paper the numbers 1 through to 31 with the words of their French equivalents. You will be seeing these words often. If possible, write it out in cursive so that you can see how they look.
3. Write down the names of the months. For me "avril" and "août" kept messing me up when I was looking at some of the writing due to the poor quality of some of the scanned documents.
4. Learn some of the key words and phrases (and approximate translations) found in the records. There will be other phrases and words that you will come across but this list is a starting point:
• née: born
• hier: yesterday
• la même: the same
• ce jour: this day
• courrant: current (often used like "instant" for the current month and year)
• veuve: widow (sometimes abbreviated as "vve" in the margin index)
• veuf: widower
• épouse: wife (sometimes abbreviated as "espe" the margin index)
• époux: husband
• fils: son
• fille: daughter
• décédés: died
• cimetière: cemetery
• cette Paroisse: this Parish
• mil neuf cent: 1900
• mil huit cent: 1800
• nous, Prêtre soussigné: we, the undersigned priest

Church Shopping

OK, this is my own phrase for it but your ancestors may not have stuck with the same church or even religion throughout their lives. If they were of the Presbyterian faith, don't discount the Church of England or Anglican churches in the area when looking for records. You might also find them in the Roman Catholic parish registers in that area.

In Canada we are fortunate in that our census records will indicate which religion the person was practising. If you see someone listed as Roman Catholic but their spouse is Church of England or other Protestant faith you might find the marriage in a Roman Catholic church with a comment along the lines of "...the law of the Church which forbids mixed marriages..."

Cathedrale St-Jacque-le-Mineur (Montréal, Quebec, Canada), Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968, "1915 Parish Register,"  marriage of Chester Robert Shirlow and (Dora) Margaret Elvert, 30 Aug 1915; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Jul 2019).

Additionally, there may have only been a few cemeteries in the area so those records may be held in different church than the one your ancestors regularly attended. Since I was dealing with folks that lived in Montreal I would often find their burial register entry in the collection for "Basilique Notre Dame" if they were buried in Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges.

If you can find the family either in the Lovell's Montreal Directory or in the later census enumerations that included the street address where they lived then Google Maps might help you figure out what churches they may have attended. However, some churches in large communities like Montreal no longer exist today so you might not be able to find them with today's maps.

Parish Registers

Depending on the community the church served, some of the parish registers for a year may be hundreds of pages in size. Even a parish with a register of 20 pages, depending on the quality of the document and writing, can be a chore to look though. Fortunately, the parish priest also didn't want to have to read every page when looking for an entry in their own register. Often you will find an index of surnames at the end of the register along with the folio number in the register where the entry can be found.

Lost Children

I consider the lost children to be those that were born and died, or in the case of parish records, baptized and buried, between census enumerations. If I find a entry for a known child in the register of a church I will often look up to ten years before and after that date for any additional children of the family.

Document Quality

If you have had any dealing with the scanned images of census documents the same rules apply with these images. Keep in mind that some of the documents you are looking at may be over two hundred years old or even older. That they have survived to this day and you can look at them from the comfort of your home can't be taken for granted. That said, some of them are really hard to read for several reasons:

• The ink has faded over time
• The documents have been damaged due to water, fire, and creatures
• The handwriting may not be the greatest (almost as bad as my own...which is horrible²)
• Pour quality of the microfilming. The contrast may be great for some parts but not for the remainder.

Transcriptions and Indexes

I really do appreciate the time, effort, and in some cases, money spent by the various commercial companies, churches, and societies to transcribe and index records. However, as any researcher knows, these transcriptions and indexes can also be the bane of our existence. The "Drouin Church and Vital Records" collection is no different. In some cases, it is almost worse than some of the census transcriptions and indexes I've used to locate family members in the digitized records.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not faulting the transcribers and indexers for all of the issues. The quality of the documents and scans they are working from would challenge anyone. So make use of wildcards like "?" and "*" in your searching of last names. I thought "Shirlow" should be easy to find but I was wrong. I had to search using "sh?rl?w" and then just "sh*w" plus restricting the location to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in my search query. I could then quickly scan the list of 100 to 200 returned names for possible matches like "Sherlow", "Sherlaw", and even "Shilow" to help me locate the key baptism, marriage, and burial records.

However, coming across many index entries of burials for people with the forename of "Epse" might throw you for a loop. In these cases the indexers wrote exactly what was written without understanding the context. Here is an example taken from the margin of a record:

Basilique Notre-Dame (Montréal, Quebec, Canada), Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968, "1892 Parish Register,"  burial of Mary Margaret Daniels wife of Henry George Tibby, 5 Sep 1892; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 Jul 2019).

The indexer wrote: "Epse Tibby Mary Margaret Daniels" for the name. This loosely translates in the document to be "Mary Margaret Daniels wife of Tibby". Her forenames are not "Epse Tibby Mary Margaret". If you have the time, take a moment to correct a few of these index issues to help out other genealogy and family history researchers in their own journey of documenting their family tree.

Also, the indexers are using the margin index entries created by the parish priest. The spelling there might not be correct for your family name at that time. However, baptism and marriage records will often have the signature, if the people could sign their name, at the end of the register entry. That is how your ancestor thought their name was spelled. Don't be surprised if the spelling is not how you spell it now! Here is an example for Rapple/Rappel/Rappell family and the changes in spelling over time and by family members based on signatures in the registers:

 

I hope that this post helps you navigate "Quebec Vital & Church Records" within "The Drouin Church and Vital Records" collection on Ancestry. I'm next off to look at the Legér branch of this family and they are all French Roman Catholics in Québec so my French language skills will be pretty much stretched to the limit! Wish me luck!

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1. 24 hours access is $5 and allows you to look at 75 images. Monthly subscription is $13 and you can view 75 images per day. An annual subscription is $100 with access to 1050 images per week. See https://www.genealogiequebec.com/en/subscription for the details.

2. No fault of my primary school teachers, especially Mrs. Currie.

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.

What's in a name? Just Confusion

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;"
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene I


Only if that was true when it is comes to the names of places and people when doing genealogy research. As I posted in "When is a Wilkerson a Wilkinson?" following the possible variations in a surname can cause no end of confusion. It can get even worse when a person changes their forename like Oscar James Little AKA James Austin Little (but that is for another day and another post).

Another of the challenges faced by all family history and genealogy researchers is to accurately record where an event took place. Some people try to keep it simple by using the place name as it exists now when adding details to their family tree. However, that can create some interesting brick walls when it comes to locating some of those hard to find records. What I try to do is to record the name of the place as it was at the time.

As some of my gentle-readers may have guessed, I've been spending the past several weeks researching various lines that originally settled in what is now called the Regional Municipality of Niagara and that is where it gets interesting. For example, a place like Niagara-on-the-Lake, Regional Municipality of Niagara, Ontario, Canada also is known by the following names (years are approximate and depended on when the necessary legislation was passed and signed law):

• 1781-1788 Butlersburg, Montreal District, Province of Quebec
• 1788-1791 Butlersburg, Nassau District, Province of Quebec
• 1791-1792 Butlersburg, Nassau District, Province of Upper Canada
• 1792-1798 Newark, Home District, Province of Upper Canada
• 1798-1841 Niagara, Niagara District, Province of Upper Canada
• 1841-1851 Niagara, Niagara District, Canada West, United Province of Canada
• 1851-1867 Niagara, Lincoln County, Canada West, United Province of Canada
• 1867-1970 Niagara¹, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada
• 1970-now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Regional Municipality of Niagara, Ontario, Canada

And that is just one place!

So why is it important to know the various names of a place? When looking for land records and if you are just looking for Niagara and ignoring Newark or Nassau then you will probably miss all those critical early records. You might also ignore a key record just because the place name used is not the same name in use today.

It can get even more confusing for early records in Ontario since there were counties created in 1792 but they co-existed with the district names until about 1851 when the districts were abolished. The counties during that period were for electoral, land registration, and militia purposes. So even though Newark was in Home District in 1792 you will also find land registrations and probates listed as being in Lincoln County.

Yes it can get very confusing at times. The Archives of Ontario even has a page called "The Changing Shape of Ontario" where you can view and download maps showing the progression from districts to counties from 1788 to 1899.

So look for web sites and other resources that can help you figure out that correct name. In my case I purchased AniMap County Boundary Historical Atlas by Gold Bug for my USA and Ontario research (Ontario is only district and county borders unfortunately and not place names). I also make use of the web pages of various historical societies and even Wikipedia to give me clues and pointers. Also for the United States of America there is the online Atlas of Historical County Boundaries that is available for free. Don't forget about gazetteers to help you out in figuring out what something is called, which county or country it may be and when.

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1. Niagara-on-the-Lake was the postal designation from the 1880s but it wasn't until 1970 when the Town and Township of Niagara was merged that the name became "official".

Robert Wilkinson: A Loyalist or Not?

In my past post, "When is a Wilkerson a Wilkinson?" I was dealing with the Wilkerson/Wilkinson family that settled in the Township of Thorold in Niagara District, Upper Canada. My interest in this family is due my aunt's husband asking me to see if the family story of being a descendant of Loyalist that served in Colonel John Butler's Rangers is true. The good thing is yes, it is true and my aunt's husband is a descendant of the Loyalist Lt. Jacob Ball (the Elder). Before anyone asks, the paperwork for the certificate application is in progress with a draft that needs to be reviewed by my aunt's husband before my final check.

Yet I didn't stop there. I was curious as to if any other of my aunt's husband's lines were also descended from Loyalists. One interesting possibility popped up and that is Robert Wilkerson, the son of Robert Wilkinson, who married the granddaughter of the United Empire Loyalist Lt. Jacob Ball (the Elder).

The starting point anytime I look for a Loyalist connection is the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada web site. On that site there is a Directory of Loyalists and, if known, that lists indicates whether the person is "proven" or "expunged". A search of that directory results in finding a Robert Wilkerson listed:

Wilkerson	Robert			Proven		Detail
Wilkie	James				Muster Table HMS "Clinton", Document # ADM 36/9966 Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. Copied by Frank Davis, transcribed by Mette Griffin	Detail
Wilkins	Andrew		Charlotte Co., NB		NYGBS; V40 N2 Apr 1909	Detail
Wilkins	Isaac		Home District		UEL List	Detail
Wilkins	Martin		Home District		UEL List	Detail
Wilkins	Robert	Serj't	Midland District	Expunged	UEL List	Detail
Wilkins	Robert			Proven		Detail
Wilkinsen	Will'm				Muster Table HMS "Clinton", Document # ADM 36/9966 Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. Copied by Frank Davis, transcribed by Mette Griffin	Detail
Wilkinson	John				Muster Table HMS "Clinton", Document # ADM 36/9966 Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. Copied by Frank Davis, transcribed by Mette Griffin	Detail
Wilkinson	Rich'd	Capt.	Eastern District		UEL List	Detail

United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, Directory of Loyalists, database (http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/loyalist_list.php: 8 Sep 2014), Robert Wilkerson entry.

Since I know there are several spelling variations of the name I also make note of other potential Loyalists such as the Robert Wilkins that is listed as "Proven".

Clicking on the Detail link for Robert Wilkerson brings up the recorded details:

Surname :	Wilkerson
Given name :	Robert
Rank :
Where Resettled :
Status as Loyalist :	Proven
Source :
Notes (Expunged, Suspended, Reinstated) :
Regiment :
Enlistment Date :
Date & Place of Birth :
Settled before war :
Date & Place of Death :
Place of Burial :
Wife Name :
Children :
Biography :
Proven Descendants :	Col. John Butler 2010-03-29; Col. John Butler 2010-04-12;
Military Info :
Loyalist Genealogy :
Family History :
Family Genealogy :
Other Info :
Reserved :

United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, Directory of Loyalists, database (http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/loyalist_list.php: 8 Sep 2014), Robert Wilkerson details.

There really isn't much there. However, for the Proven Descendants there are two references:

• Col. John Butler 2010-03-29
• Col. John Butler 2010-04-12

These refer to the UELAC branch and the date of approval of the certificate application. This is a great thing to find. Since I belong to UELAC and I am also doing this as part of a certificate application I sent an e-mail to my local branch genealogist asking to retrieve either one of those certificate application. He forwarded me the e-mail of the Col. John Butler branch genealogist and after a few e-mail exchanges I had a copy of the application sent to me by mail (postal mail, not e-mail).

One thing I did when asking for a copy of the application and supporting documentation was to ask that all except the first four generations from the Loyalist be redacted. That way I preserve the privacy of any living people listed yet I still have enough information that I can bridge from my records to the generation(s) that I am missing.

In the packet I received paper copies of the wills for Robert Wilkerson and his father Robert Wilkinson plus the Certificate of Family Lands and Additional Bounty with Robert Wilkinson's name on it.

Township Papers for Thorold, microfilm MS658 (Toronto, Ontario: Archives of Ontario), reel 471, no. 000144, Certificate of Family Lands and Additional Bounty for Robert Wilkinson, issued 9 Feb 1791.

Here you can read that the board has "...examined into his character and pretensions, and find that he as received two hundred Acres of land in the Township of N^o 9 in the District of Nassau as a Loyalist..."

This, interestingly enough, is the only documentation that I can find, with the exception of an entry¹ for his grandson, David Wilkerson, son of John Wilkerson, where it says "...grandson of Robert Wilkerson, a native of Pennsylvania, of German descent, who came to Canada as a U. E. Loyalist during the American revolutionary war".

Since I'm not a trusting sort when it comes to genealogy research I like to have some corroboration to statements made. To that end I've looked in the following references for any mention of Robert Wilkinson or Robert Wilkerson:

• "The Loyalists In Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of The American Loyalists Of Upper Canada" by William D. Reid
• "American Loyalist Claims (AO12)", Library and Archives Canada, Robert Wilkinson file, microfilm B-1177, volume 99, image 352. A claim reviewed in October 1783 was made but was found to be "perfectly groundless" by the examining board.
• "American Loyalist Claims (AO13)", Library and Archives Canada, Robert Wilkinson file, microfilm B-2432, volume 67, images 601-602. This is the petition made that was reviewed in October 1783.
• "British Military Records", Library and Archives Canada, RG 8, C Series.
• "Loyalist Lineages of Canada" compiled by Toronto Branch, United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada (c) 1991. Published by Toronto Branch, United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada, Toronto, Ontario.
• "Biographical sketches of loyalists of the American Revolution" by Lorenzo Sabine
• "Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War" by Murtie June Clark

I still have several tasks to do:

• Locate the first grant mentioned in the above Certificate of Family Lands and Additional Bounty.
• Review the notes of W. G. Reive that have been placed within the collections of Library and Archives Canada. 
• Scan the shelves of the library of the Sir Guy Carleton Branch of UELAC that are held at the City of Ottawa Archives.
• Look through the Heir and Devisee digitized microfilms.

But as of yet, nothing has been found to corroborate the statement that Robert Wilkinson/Wilkerson is a Loyalist.

If you have any suggestions as to where to also look for additional evidence that Robert Wilkinson was a United Empire Loyalist I would be happy to hear from you.

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1. Historical Publishing Company, editor, The History of the County of Welland, Ontario, Its Past and Present, Containing a Condensed History of Canada; A Complete History of Welland County: Its Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Societies, Industries, Statistics, Etc; Portraits of Some of Its Prominent Men; Description of Its Various Historic and Interesting Localities; Miscellaneous Matter; Biographies and Histories of Pioneer Families, Etc. (Welland, Ontario: Welland Tribune Printing House, 1887), p. 488, entry for David Wilkerson.

Upper Canada Land Petitions at LAC

One of the challenges faced by new users of the Library and Archives Canada web site is that the site is a mishmash of indexes, indexed images and digitized microfilms. Even worse, some of the collections are in the "Archived" list that may be buried on the site under the ARCHIVED - Microform Digitization page. This can quickly frustrate even the most experienced genealogy researcher the first time (or second time) they attempt to find documents on the site.

A case in point is the Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865 collection. Here they have a searchable database that let's you search by the given names, surnames, and also by place. You can even use the '*' character to search with a wild card. For example, when looking for a land petition for Robert Wilkerson in Niagara results in nothing being found. However, he went by the name of Wilkinson. So instead of searching on all the various possible combinations of a name you can use the first several letters followed by the asterisk. So in this case I would search for Robert Wilk* to see what comes up. I might even narrow the focus and put in Niagara as the place. But most of the time I leave the place field empty unless I'm positive I know exactly where it was and what it was called at the time.

I'm going to use the Jacob Ball as my example for the next queries.This is what is returned from the LAC database query:

Surname	Given Name(s)	Place	Year	Volume	Bundle	Petition	Page(s)	Reference	Microfilm
BALL	Jacob Jr.	Newark	1795	27	B 1	27		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob	Lincoln	1794	27	B 1	65		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob Sr.	Newark	1795	27	B 1	81		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob	Newark	1795	27	B 1	82		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob Jr.	Thorold	1795	27	B 1	85		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob Sr.	Newark	1795	27	B 1	96		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob	Newark	1797	28	B 2	156		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob & family	Newark	1797	29	B 3	9		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob	Nassau	1791	29	B 3	43		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob	Nassau	1791	29	B 3	60		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob	Nassau	1791	29	B 3	61		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob sr.	Newark	1797	29	B 3	77		RG 1 L3	C-1619
BALL	Jacob Sr.	Newark	1800	32	B 5	104		RG 1 L3	C-1621
BALL	Jacob Sr.	Niagara	1805	34	B 7	45		RG 1 L3	C-1621
BALL	Jacob J.	Thorold	1810	36	B 9	86		RG 1 L3	C-1622

As you can see there are several Jacob Balls listed. I already know that Jacob Ball the Elder has a son (the Jr.) so that isn't a surprise. Also the time frame is the late 1700s and early 1800s. I've already discovered that Jacob Ball the Elder (AKA Jacob Ball, Sr.) is an United Empire Loyalist.

Not that there are several places listed: Newark, Lincoln, Nassau, and Niagara. If you didn't know the area you might assume these places are all different locations. This is where knowing the region where your ancestors settled is vital. Have a map handy and even Wikipedia can be a useful tools for figuring out where and when a place is.

Looking at the 1791 petitions the place is Nassau. We aren't talking about the Bahamas here but Nassau District, Province of Quebec. This was even before Upper Canada came into being. In the early days of Upper Canada (remember this is way before Ontario existed), from 1792 until 1797, Newark was the capital of Upper Canada. In 1798 Newark was renamed as Niagara (much later on it became Niagara-on-the-Lake). Lincoln is the county in that same region. Thorold is a township in Lincoln County. So all of these places were in the same geographic region.

Next, make a note of the Volume number, Bundle, Petition and Reference. Also note the microfilm. We are going to need that information in order to actually find and see the documents. For this example, I'm interested in Jacob Balls 1791 Nassau petition found on volume 29, bundle B 3, petition 43 referencing RG 1 L3 on microfilm C-1619.

Of course it would be so much easier if LAC had linked to the Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) (Archived) microform collection from the information page of the database search but they didn't do it. Instead you need to know that the digitized microfilm is actually available online at the link above. I will admit that they do mention it on the Land Records starting page. When you go to that archived page you will be presented with a list of microfilm numbers. Look through the various pages until you come to microfilm C-1619 (it is on the first page). Click on that link to bring up the start of the digitized microfilm.

Depending on how your web browser is set up you just might want to click on the "PDF" button so that each page almost fits on the screen. In my case, the JPG format is just a little too big and it continues off the side of my screen. I do switch back to JPG to save the image so I can manipulate it later if I want.

Go forward a couple of pages until the microfilm pages are on the screen. Now look at the bottom of the digitized microfilm page. It will tell you the bundle (B 1) the RG number (RG 1 L 3) and the volume (27). Since I'm looking for volume 29 I probably have a number of pages to go. I usually jump ahead by 100 or 200 pages until I either overshoot the volume I want or I actually get to the right volume. In this case, I ended up on page 1000 before I was in volume 29. Even better, I'm in bundle B 3. If you look at the top of each page you will see numbers written there. On image page 1000 it is written 50c. So I'm probably looking at the 3rd page of petition 50. I'm going to move backwards maybe 10 or 20 pages at a time until I get really close to petition 43. I quickly find that it starts on image page 975. There may be several pages so make sure you save them all to your computer so you can take the time to read and transcribe the documents.

It isn't that hard to find these Land Petition documents but, as with all genealogy research, you have to know where to look and that is often the biggest challenge of them all!