Tag Archives: Family History

Did your ancestors come from Russia?

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Do you wonder who your first Russian ancestor was and when he or she left Russia and arrived in Canada? Are you curious about your family’s Russian heritage?

If so, the LAC website is a great place to begin your research. For instance, you will find a page specific to genealogical research for the Russians. It provides you with historical background, LAC’s archival collections and published material, as well as links to other websites and institutions.

If your ancestor came to Canada between 1865 and 1935, you might find his or her name on passenger lists.

Tip:

Tracing your Russian ancestor in Canada is the first step. Joining a genealogical society is an ideal way to begin your genealogy research.

Learn where and how to begin your research at Library and Archives Canada by watching this short orientation video: Orientation Services for Clients at 395 Wellington.

For more information on recent announcements at LAC, visit “News“.

Did your ancestors come from Italy?

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Do you wonder who your first Italian ancestor was and when he or she left Italy and arrived in Canada? Are you curious about your family’s Italian heritage?

If so, the LAC website is a great place to begin your research. For instance, you will find a page specific to genealogical research for the Italians. It provides you with historical background, LAC‘s archival collections and published material, as well as links to other websites and institutions.

If your ancestor came to Canada between 1865 and 1935, you might find his or her name on passenger lists.

Tip

Tracing your Italian ancestor in Canada is the first step. Joining a genealogical society is an ideal way to begin your genealogy research.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

New France Census Records

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Did you know that several nominal censuses dating from the early French colonial period have been digitized and are available on our website?  You will see that most of these census records list only the heads of the household. Here are a few examples (in French, only):

To find other censuses such as those mentioned above, simply enter the keywords “recensement nominatif”, “recensement habitants” or “recensement familles” in our “Collection Search” database  and select “Online: yes.”

Note that since the records are of French origin and have been written only in French you must use French keywords to search.

For more information on census records, we invite you to visit our Genealogy and Family History pages.

Happy hunting!

Census Search Tips and Tricks

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Genealogists researching census records may encounter various challenges, including:

Spelling variations

  • Indexers may sometimes have trouble making out enumerators’ handwriting or interpreting records when they are in poor condition
  • Enumerators’ ability to spell and transcribe the information they received correctly may greatly influence search results
  • Enumerators occasionally translated names into their mother tongue or transcribed them phonetically. Accordingly, French-Canadian names like Jean-Baptiste or Marie-Anne might be translated as John Baptist or Mary Ann

Date variations

  • Many dates of birth may also be inaccurate. For example, our ancestors sometimes had trouble remembering their children’s exact date of birth and even their own

Inaccurate information

  • The household member interviewed by the enumerator might have provided incorrect information, which will also influence search results

Help is at hand!

Over the years, genealogists at Library and Archives Canada have come up with research tricks. Here are a few that are sure to help:

  • If you located your ancestor in the 1901 census, for example, but have trouble finding him or her in the 1911 census, just jot down the names of your ancestor’s neighbours from the 1901 census, then try to find them in the 1911 census. With luck, your ancestor will have stayed at the same address, and you will easily trace him or her
  • If you are having difficulty finding an ancestor, try limiting your search criteria; for example, if your ancestor has an uncommon name or surname, search for him or her using only that name
  • You may find information about your ancestor in a city directory if he or she lived in a large city. If this is the case, try searching the directory of the city your ancestor lived in to confirm his or her residence there. Read our blog post What Can Canadian Directories Do for You? to learn more
  • Our Genealogy and Family History section provides search tips and a list of abbreviations found in censuses

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Opa! Did Your Ancestors Come From Greece?

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Do you wonder who your first Greek ancestor was and when he or she left Greece and arrived in Canada? Are you curious about your family’s Greek heritage?

If so, the LAC website is a great place to begin your research. For instance, you will find a page specific to genealogical research for the Greeks. It provides you with historical background, LAC’s archival collections and published material, as well as links to other websites and institutions.

If your ancestor came to Canada between 1865 and 1935, you might find his or her name on passenger lists.

Tip

Tracing your Greek ancestor in Canada is the first step. Joining a genealogical society  is an ideal way to begin your genealogy research.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Did Your Ancestors Come From Ireland (Eire)?

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Do you wonder who your first Irish ancestor was and when he or she left Ireland and arrived in Canada? Are you curious about your family’s Irish heritage?

If so, the LAC website is a great place to begin your research. For instance, you will find a page specific to genealogical research for the Irish. It provides you with historical background, LAC’s archival collections and published material, as well as links to other websites and institutions.

If you know your Irish ancestor came to Canada before 1865, the following three databases are great starting points for your research:

If your ancestor came to Canada between 1865 and 1935, you might find his or her name on passenger lists.

Tip

Tracing your Irish ancestor in Canada is the first step. Tracing your ancestor in Ireland will require more research as the county where he or she came from in Ireland might not be known. Joining a genealogical society is an ideal way to begin your genealogy research.

Don’t forget to listen to The Shamrock and the Fleur-de-Lys, our podcast about the mass immigration of Irish settlers to Quebec in the 1800s.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

How to Search for Birth, Marriage and Death Records

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Did you know that there are two sources for finding birth, marriage and death records?

From early times to the present, baptisms, marriages and burials have been recorded in church parish registers. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, provincial and territorial governments introduced the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths.

As civil registration is not a federal jurisdiction, Library and Archives Canada does not hold copies of birth, marriage and death certificates, but….

…help is at hand!

To learn about how to find these records from other sources, visit our pages on vital statistics: births, marriages and deaths.

Many genealogical societies and individuals have indexed parish registers and published the result of their work. These publications are called “Church Indexes” (known as “répertoires” in French-Canadian genealogy).  Most of the volumes are for marriages but also exist for baptisms and burials.

We hold many of these indexes; here’s how to find them in our collection:

Use AURORA to search not only our collection, but the holdings of libraries across Canada.

1. On the Basic Search screen, select “Title Keyword” from the drop-down menu.  Enter your search terms, such as a place name (province, town, township or county) plus a term for the kind of information you are looking for.

Examples:

  • Trois-Rivières marriages or Trois-Rivières
  • mariages Edmonton cemeteries
  • Collingwood deaths

2. On the Basic Search screen, select “Subject Keyword” from the drop-down menu.  Enter your search term, such as a place name (province, town, township or county) and the word genealogy or genealogies or registers. Note that subject headings for each publication are in English and French, so you may use the language of your choice.

Examples:

  • Saskatchewan genealogy
  • Russell genealogies
  • Niagara registers

Did you know?

Published material, such as books, may often be borrowed via interlibrary loan*. Simply provide the bibliographic citation, along with the AMICUS number, to your librarian, and they may request it from LAC.

 

(*) Update: End of Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Services

 

ILL services at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) will end in December 2012. Users of LAC‘s current services should note the following dates:

  • November 13, 2012: End of loan requests from international libraries.
  • November 16, 2012: End of renewals. All items loaned after this date will be non-renewable.
  • December 11, 2012: End of loan requests, location searches, and ILL-related photocopying services.

LAC‘s ILL listserv (CANRES-L) and Canadian Library Gateway will also be archived in December 2012.

LAC will continue to facilitate interlibrary loan activities among other institutions through the ILL form in AMICUS, and through ongoing administration of Canadian Library Symbols.

Through our modernized service channels, LAC will emphasize increased digital access to high-demand content. LAC is working with Canada’s ILL user community in order to inform this approach to accessing the institution’s unique holdings.

For more information, please visit “Interlibrary Loan at Library and Archives Canada“.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Understand the Abbreviations Commonly Found in Military Service Files

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In previous posts, we’ve explained how to order Military Service files and we’ve even outlined what type of documents you are likely to find in them; but what happens once you begin reading a Military Service file and see abbreviations? You may recognize some abbreviations, such as “YMCA” (Young Men’s Christian Association), but others, such as “11thIFofC” or “YISMHRCAMC”, may prove to be somewhat puzzling.

Help Is at Hand

Understanding these abbreviations can be difficult, especially if you are unfamiliar with Canadian military history. For this reason, the Genealogy Services have transcribed over 6,000 abbreviations commonly found in these records and have added them to a list of abbreviations used in military service files. Using this list, you can search for the abbreviations in alphabetical order.

Understanding that “11thIFofC” stands for “11th Regiment (Irish Fusiliers of Canada)” or that “YISMHRCAMC” means “York Island Station Military Hospital Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps” will help you decipher the soldier’s life and provide you with a much better understanding of ranks, jobs, regiments and much more.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

How to Search for Your Ancestor in our Genealogy Databases

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Did you know that Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has an online Ancestors Search function that combs through many of our genealogical databases at once, simply by using your ancestor’s name?

The Ancestors Search page lists all of our genealogical databases. Those labelled with the letter “G” are included in the Ancestors Search results, while the others can be searched individually.

If you cannot find your ancestor’s name in the Ancestors Search results, try searching in one of our other databases, listed by topic.

The layout of each of our genealogy databases is similar and includes useful tabs on the left menu. For example, the “Search Help” section provides information that will:

  • help you understand the records we have indexed;
  • tell you how to interpret your search results;
  • explain how to consult or obtain copies of documents.

Did you know?

  • Databases can have indexing errors because of poor handwriting, poor legibility, or the fading of ink over time in the original records. If you find an error in the index, use the “Suggest a correction” feature.
  • Some databases allow for wildcard searching, that is, you can substitute a letter with a symbol to allow for more search results. For example, use “Sm*th” for Smith or Smyth, or “Fred*” for Frederick or Fredrich.
  • In the past, many names were written phonetically by the person recording them, such as the priest for a Parish Register or an enumerator for the Census. This resulted in various spellings of the same name.
  • Nicknames or middle names may have been used by your ancestor(s). For example, many French Canadians of the Catholic faith were baptized as Marie or Joseph, and as such, your ancestor(s) may have been registered under one of these names.
  • A woman may have been listed under her married or maiden name.
  • Sometimes individuals anglicized their names. For example, a branch of the “Boisvert” family became the “Greenwood” family. Many immigrants from Eastern European countries also anglicized their names, such as in a branch of the “Kowalchuck” family, which became the “Cowell” family.
  • Names or dates may be different than what you have in your records. Our ancestors did not have to identify themselves as we do today and they might not have known their exact date of birth or date of immigration.

Only a portion of LAC’s genealogical records have been indexed. Visit our Genealogy and Family History pages for more information about genealogy topics and other sources.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!