By Julia Barkhouse

This article contains historical language and content that some may consider offensive, such as language used to refer to gender, racial, ethnic and cultural groups. Please see our historical language advisory for more information.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is the guardian of Canada’s distant past and recent history. It holds the historical census returns for Canada, including some dating back to New France and some for Newfoundland. We have indexed some dating from 1825 to 1926, and these are available online through Census Search.

Before Confederation, censuses were generally collected in either English or French, depending on the location. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics (now Statistics Canada) phased in bilingual forms after Confederation in 1867.

Example of a bilingual Census 1921 form enumerated in English and French:

The language used to record answers to census questions may reflect the language preference of the enumerator or the language in which the answers were provided. The historical census data that we have reflects our linguistic duality as a nation. Census returns from Quebec and some parts of New Brunswick and Manitoba are written (or, enumerated) in French, while the rest of Canada was enumerated in English.

When our partners, including Ancestry and FamilySearch, indexed the censuses from 1825 to 1926, we produced a wealth of data with names of individuals, their gender, marital status, etc. However, we were faced with a serious challenge: census data could be collected in either English or French depending on the personal preference of the enumerator. So how did we handle this?

Life as an Enumerator

Let us detour for a moment and describe the journey of the enumerator. Enumerators were Canadians hired by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics to collect census data in one or more sub-districts. They received a book of instructions (such as this one for Census 1921) that detailed what they were supposed to write on the form depending on what people answered. They were given a booklet of census return forms and instructions on which sub-districts to enumerate. Then this person had a timeframe to enumerate a number of sub-districts and mail these forms back to the government department. You can imagine this person going from door to door in a horse-drawn carriage or perhaps an early automobile (maybe a Ford Model T) by 1921.

The enumerator knocked on the door and asked to speak to the head of the household (typically the father and/or husband). They might be invited in to sit at the kitchen table as they asked questions. If the family was not home, there might be a notice or calling card left on the door with contact details to follow up and meet the enumerator by a given date to be counted in the census.

Depending on the province in Canada, the enumerator either wrote down information in the language of the person speaking or in their personal language preference. Therefore, it is possible that French regions of Canada around Quebec, New Brunswick and Manitoba were enumerated in one or both languages depending on the enumerator’s personal preference.

Fast forward: the data captured on the forms was transcribed by our partners around 92 years after the census taking and put online.

Language Barriers

When LAC put these databases online, we noticed that we had data in both languages. If you wish to search for your ancestor, you have to search in the language of the enumerator. Did the enumerator write your grandmother’s information in English or French? Does your name have an accent (é, è …) that might have been misheard (or not captured) by the enumerator? Does your uncle’s name have a silent “h” that might have been omitted? This creates a language barrier for our researchers, who want to find people but do not speak the language used at the time. Some of our Francophone researchers have to search in English to find their French-speaking ancestors. This is an unbalanced search experience for Canadians who access our Census Search interface in French.

Creation of Census Search

When the Digital Access Agile Team reorganized and consolidated the 17 census databases into Census Search last November, we wanted to deliver a better search experience for all Canadians. Our aim was to provide the same search experience for Francophones as for Anglophones, so that any of our clients who use the French Census Search interface can search and get the same results as if they were searching in English.

So how do you do this? How do you translate information like gender, marital status, ethnic origin and occupation for over 44 million individuals to offer an equal experience for all Canadians? It’s actually very simple. The solution? Data cleanup.

A Peek Under the Hood

Let’s go behind the scenes for a moment to look at how census data is saved. Census Search is the public interface that LAC clients can use to search. The census data for each individual in Census Search is saved in one master table called EnumAll.

In this table, each line represents an individual person. The data captured about that person is separated into columns. If we do not have data in a particular column, it says NULL.

Creation of Common Data Pools

Census.EnumAll acts as the master data table. From this, we created common data groups (or, pools). What do I mean by this? We copied all of the data for one of the columns (Gender, Marital Status, Ethnic Origin, Religion, etc.) into a separate table. The only information in this separate table is a list of Genders or options for Marital Status, etc. We call this a common data pool, meaning that all the data in this table (or, pool) relates to one piece of information.

The common data table separates the data (e.g., “Male” or “Female”) from the individual person. If you look at 44 million individuals, you see the same data repeated, such as the number of times the enumerator wrote “Male” or “Married.” In a common table, you see “Male” only once, with a value count for the number of people with this information (which we call an attribute).

This is where the magic happens.

As you can see in this separate common data table, we can do more things. With codes, we establish one way to write each Gender (in this example). This is called an authority. We then perform cleanup so all the variants point to this one authority. In the screenshot above, you’ll notice a variance between “Male” and “M.”

Once we have this authority, we create columns for how we want to display the information in Census Search. We create an English (TextLongEn) and a French (TextLongFr) display. We then add the bilingual translation once and it applies to everything. In this case, we translated “Male” to “Homme,” and it applies to all 20,163,488 people who identified as “Male” across 17 censuses.

We then put all the tables back together and index the records to display in Census Search. So depending on the language of your choice, the interface and the data itself will now translate for you.

Now, when I search for my great-grandfather, Henry D. Barkhouse, and display any of his census entries, the data translates as well.

Progress Check-in

As you can imagine, this work takes time as we diligently clean up and translate our data. Our first priority was to create drop-down menus on Census Search for Gender and Marital Status. Now, if you wish to search by either of these fields, you will see a short list of terms that are translated and available in both official languages. As we continue this work, our next priorities are Ethnic Origin and Place of Birth. We are about 60–70% finished with these two, and our clients should see new options coming to Census Search in 2024. After these two priority fields, we will continue to translate other fields like Religion, Relationship to head of household, Occupation, etc.

Conclusion

Consolidating all 17 censuses into one platform, Census Search, gave us the opportunity to create a bilingual display for our census data by cleaning up the data. Since its launch, our platform delivers a more equal search experience in the language of your choice. I encourage you to try it out and tell us if your search experience has improved.

As always, we love to read your feedback and ideas via our email or you can sign up for a 10-minute feedback session with us.

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Julia Barkhouse has worked at Library and Archives Canada in data quality, database management and administration for the last 14 years. She is currently the Collections Data Analyst on the Digital Access Agile Team.