Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce that Canadians can now access the Census of Lower Canada, 1825 online. The Census of Lower Canada, 1825 is partly nominal and therefore only contains the names of heads of family, their occupation, and the number of residents for each family.
Users can search this new database by the names of heads of family, as well as by geographical information such as district and sub-district names.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Canadian government, led by Sir Robert Borden, wanted to strengthen Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic, in response to the presence of the United States and Russia in the North. The Canadian Arctic Expedition was established by Order-in-Council 406, dated February 22, 1913, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Naval Services and other government bodies.
The expedition was comprised of two groups, each with its own objective: the Northern Party, led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, was responsible for geographic exploration of the Arctic to ensure Canadian sovereignty in the western part, while the Southern Party, led by Dr. Rudolph M. Anderson, focused on scientific discovery.
V. Stefansson on board the Karluk. Source
Rudolph Martin Anderson. Source
An expedition fraught with challenge
On June 17, 1913, the expedition set sail from Esquimalt Harbour in British Columbia aboard the Karluk headed for Herschel Island in the Beaufort Sea. In August, the ship became trapped in ice and drifted for over four months, eventually sinking in Siberia. The ship’s captain, Robert Bartlett, describes the final days of the voyage in his book Northward ho! The last voyage of the Karluk. Stefansson’s decision to leave the ship on September 19, 1913, to continue his exploration occurred in a climate of crisis. Stefansson’s departure remains a source of controversy and debate among historians.
The Karluk sails near Esquimalt Harbour. Source
To find out more
The following are some of the archival documents and government reports that constitute the information resources related to this expedition.
For consultation on-site at Library and Archives Canada:
Available online from Library and Archives Canada:
Other sources:
Please note that the majority of the documents are available in English only.
For more information, be sure to visit the virtual exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization: Northern People, Northern Knowledge: The story of the Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1918.
Visit our Flickr album for more photographs.
Today’s article features Mary Scott Pearson who was born in Scotland. Mary’s name appears in the Scottish Census of 1881. The entry indicates that she lived in Glasgow with her sister Maggie and their widowed mother, also named Mary. The two sisters became orphans when their mother died in 1888. The next census (1891) indicates that the sisters lived at the Girls Industrial School in Maryhill, in the County of Lanarkshire.
The Pearson sisters were separated in September 1891 when Mary boarded the SS Hibernian en route to Canada as part of a group of 20 young women recruited to work as domestic servants. The young Scottish women’s transportation and accommodations were arranged by Ms. E. Cameron, an Industrial School official.
As in previous articles, you must first consult our main home children online resource. Enter the surname Pearson and the given name Mary into this database and it will generate only one result for Mary Pearson, age 14, whose destination was Saint John, New Brunswick. The Fairknowe foster home, administered by a charitable organization known as Quarriers, was Mary Pearson’s first place of residence in Canada.
Ten years after her arrival, according to the Census of 1901, Mary was living in Prescott, Ontario, with the family of Patrick MacMillen. She married Curtis Brownell five years later, on March 21, 1906, in Cornwall, County of Stormont. The couple’s first son, Earl Kenneth, was born in September of the following year.
Mary Scott Pearson and Curtis Brownell raised their family in Cornwall, where they lived until the time of their deaths; Curtis died in 1931 and Mary died in 1945.
Jim Brownell, son of Earl Kenneth Brownell, honours his grandmother’s arrival in Canada
Her grandson, Jim, elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 2003, travelled to Scotland in 2009 when he visited the city of Glasgow, officially representing the Government of Ontario. The articles that appeared in the Cornwall daily newspaper, the Standard Freeholder, on September 23, 2009 and May 25, 2011, describe the journey of Mary S. Pearson and her sister Maggie, and Mr. Brownell’s work to foster a better understanding of the often little-known home children movement.
In 2011, as Member of Provincial Parliament for Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry, Jim Brownell tabled Bill 185 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to have September 28 proclaimed “British Home Child Day.” The purpose of the bill, which received royal assent on June 1 of that year, was to honour his grandmother and his great-aunt Maggie, as well as the more than 100,000 British home children.
Don’t forget to read the previous articles in this series on home children and listen to our podcast!
Happy hunting and enjoy your discoveries!
Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the Census of Canada, 1891 database. This third general census covered the seven provinces and one territory that were then part of Confederation: British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories.
The new version includes suggestions for corrections that were received from users in recent months, as well as revised district and sub-district information.
Library and Archives Canada took custody of the Census of the Canadian population, 1921 from Statistics Canada, and is beginning work to make it discoverable for Canadians. Closed for 92 years under the Statistics Act to protect individuals’ private information, the census data is being indexed so it can be mined for historical and genealogical research as soon as possible.
Taken on June 1, 1921, the census contains a wealth of information available on more than 197,500 images. The almost 11,700 commissioners and enumerators recorded by hand nearly 8.8 million individuals in thousands of communities across the country. Census returns were geographically enumerated, that is to say according to a person’s residence and not by individuals’ names, in the order in which households were visited.
Information for the census was collected on the following five subjects: population; agriculture; animals, animal products, fruits not on farms; manufacturing and trading establishments; and supplemental questionnaire for persons who were blind and deaf. This represents a total of 565 questions. The population questionnaire contained only 35 questions.
Library and Archives Canada is committed to making the 1921 Census’ rich and complex information accessible and available to all Canadians, no matter where they live, in the next few weeks. Further details on the 1921 Census’ availability will be shared once they are available.
Canadians can continue to access censuses taken before 1921 through Library and Archives Canada’s Census Indexes webpage to learn more about their families and study Canada’s past. Census records are among the most often consulted resources on Library and Archives Canada’s website.
Reference librarians and archivists at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) are happy to assist you by:
• showing you how to make the best use of our research tools
• directing you toward suggested resources
You may wish to take a proactive approach to your research project before making a reference appointment. Being better prepared in the following ways will allow you to maximize your time with a LAC professional.
Have you laid the groundwork using sources near you?
Local municipal and university libraries provide a wealth of resources to researchers. These resources are an important first stop for anyone embarking on a historical research project.
Read everything you can about your subject. Books and journal articles provide important background and context for your research project. Verifying the bibliographies and source citations of such published items can often help identity additional research resources, which may or may not be held at LAC.
Take notes! When consulting any source, be sure to take well-organized notes and to fully transcribe all references. For published sources, you will need to have the complete title, the author’s name, and the place and date of publication. For archival sources, be sure to note the name of the archives that holds the records, the collection name, collection code, box or volume number, file titles and dates. Bring these references to your appointment at LAC along with the tools necessary for taking additional notes.
Have you done a preliminary search with our online tools?
Our Academic Researchers page can help you set the stage. If you are unfamiliar with what an archive is, we recommend our guide on Using Archives and our blog post Discover Finding Aids!
Remember that not everything we have is available online.
Do you have the right archive or library?
LAC holds a wealth of archival material of national and federal significance relating to Canadian history. However, we do not hold everything. Provinces, universities, counties, cities, corporations and social organizations all maintain their own unique archival and library collections. Depending on your topic, these may prove to be not only the most relevant but possibly the only resources available to you.
For example, information relating to land grants, local land titles and lot history is generally held at the provincial level. If you are interested in the history of a local arts festival or business, then the city archives or local historical society will likely be the best resource to consult. Please note that in the case of corporations and social organizations, their unique historical records may not be open for public research. In the case of some unique provincial resources, a fee for use may be required.
For the scientific research and innovation community, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, which is the national science library at National Research Council Canada, represents a valuable online resource.
This article, the first of a series depicting Immigration and Citizenship sources, offers insight into pre-Confederation arrivals in Canada. Very few records compiled before 1865 still exist. Most surviving records, which are from various sources, have been indexed by name in databases.
Here are the key resources*:
The Immigrants to Canada database was compiled from documents such as immigration and land records and some private fonds, namely the Peter Robinson Papers. It provides access to more than 28,000 references to records held at Library and Archives Canada (LAC).
The Montreal Emigrant Society Passage Book (1832) database provides access to 1,945 references and digitized documents to people who received assistance from the Montreal Emigrant Society in 1832.
The Immigrants at Grosse-Île (1832-1937) database is the result of an agreement between Parks Canada and LAC. It contains more than 33,000 records spanning a 100-year time period. The references describe various events for immigrants arriving at the city of Québec and their time spent at the Grosse-Île Quarantine Station.
The Upper Canada and Canada West Naturalization Records (1828-1850) database gives references to the names of 2,967 persons naturalized in what is now the province of Ontario between 1828 and 1850. The 188 registers have been scanned and digitized images are accessible in this database.
The Citizenship Registration Records for the Montreal Circuit Court (1851-1945) database provides access to more than 8,000 references to the Citizenship Registration Records for the Montreal Circuit Court. The records have been digitized and linked to the database references.
If you think some of your “ancêtres” can be traced back to France, LAC holds a small number of lists from the French Regime (1717-1786).
Coming soon!
Stay tuned for the following related upcoming articles:
*Note: Don’t forget that the Search Help page of a database is the best place to find out how the records are arranged.
Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the 1901 Census of Canada database. This fourth general census covered the seven provinces and the territory that were then part of Confederation: British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the Territories.
The new version includes suggestions for corrections that were received from users in recent months, as well as revised district and sub-district information.
On May 19, 1845, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror left England under the command of Sir John Franklin in search of the Northwest Passage. This expedition was without a doubt a most ill-fated venture, as not a single member returned alive.
An iceberg, HMS Terror and some walruses near the entrance of Hudson Strait
Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1979-49-1. Source
Major search efforts were launched to find the missing men, including three expeditions to the Arctic in spring 1848. Rewards were also offered in 1849 and 1850 for any information about Franklin’s expedition. These searches did produce results: in 1850, the first relics—the graves of three crewmen who died in 1846—were found at Beechey Island, west of Devon Island.
In July 1857, Lady Franklin also financed an expedition under the command of Francis McClintock aboard the ship Fox. On May 5, 1859, William Hobson, Lieutenant of the Fox, found a document placed beneath a cairn containing two messages. The first, written by Franklin on May 28, 1847, indicated that the crew of the two ships had spent the winter of 1845–46 off Beechey Island, and that all was well. The second message, dated April 25, 1848, indicated that the Erebus and Terror had been trapped in ice since September 1846, west of King William Island, and that 24 men had died, including Franklin on June 11, 1847.
In the wake of expeditions undertaken to find Franklin, numerous maps were drawn, including the Discoveries in the Arctic Sea, 1616-1927 and the Chart showing the vicinity of King William Island. These identified the sites Franklin visited, the places where his group wintered and the site in which his ships were abandoned. The second map also mentions the diverted courses the two wrecks may have followed.
Although we now know the fate of the members of this expedition, every attempt to find the wrecks of the Erebus and the Terror has been unsuccessful, despite the magnitude of the searches and modern technologies deployed.
For more information about the period prior to the expeditions:
For more information about the periods prior to and following the expeditions:
For more information about the period following the expeditions:
Publications, bibliographies and guides held at Library and Archives Canada:
Please visit our Flickr album for more photographs.
Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the Census of Canada, 1871 database. This first general census covered the four provinces that were then part of Confederation: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
The new version includes suggestions for corrections received from users in recent months, as well as revised district and sub-district information.
