52 Ancestors: Week 17 - Parish Registers on Canadiana

Digital images of church records can be hard to find in Canada, especially if your ancestor wasn't Catholic. It's even harder to find free records. Thankfully, thanks to Canadiana, you can look at literally hundreds of reels of microfilm for FREE.

When I typed "parish registers", "church" and "religion" into the search engines for Heritage, Early Canadiana Online, and Canadiana, I got literally thousands of hits. I've compiled a short list of links below for ones with multiple reels or issues. In the interest of space, I haven't included descriptions of the record sets.

• Parish registers: Newfoundland and Labrador Registres paroissiaux : Terre-Neuve et Labrador St. Martin's-in-the-Woods Anglican Church (Shediac Cape, N.B.

• Parish registers: New Brunswick - 7 Reels

• Parish registers: Nova Scotia Registres paroissiaux : Nouvelle-Écosse Fonds de la paroisse catholique Caraquet, N.-B. Registres de l'Acadie, et se rapportamt à divers endroits du Nouveau-Brunswick, de la Nouvelle Écosse, et du Québec Fonds de la paroisse catholique Saint-Charles-des-Mines (Grand-Pré, N.-É.) - 14 Reels

• France. Fonds des Archives nationales: Série F15. Hospices et secours

• Parish registers : Quebec - 56 Reels

• Fonds de la Seigneurie de Sorel - 5 Reels

• Parish registers: Ontario - 7 Reels

• Dominion Lands branch : Manitoba parish registers used to award Métis land grants, 1875-80 - C11885

• Parish registers: Manitoba - 3 reels

• Dominion Lands Branch : Manitoba Original White Settlers parish returns, 1875-1879

• The Parish Guide (Hamilton, Ontario) - 8 Issues

• The diocesan and parish magaizine (Victoria, British Columbia) - 20 issues

• St. John's Church record and parish notes (St. John, New Brunswick) - 10 issues

• Journal of the Fifteenth Session of the Diocesan Synod of Nova Scotia (Halifax, Nova Scotia) - 14 Issues

• The Church Guardian (Montreal, Quebec) - 744 Issues

This is just a small sampling of what can be found. Try a variety of search words, and you will get different results every time. And don't forget to look at books as well. Here's a few I found:

• Joint Heirs With Christ (published in Winnipeg, Manitoba) by J.A. Shirley

• Premier centenaire de la paroisse de Mont Carmel, Ile du Prince Édouard, le 20 août, 1912 by Pierre-Paul Arsenault

• Annals of sixty years, Cooke's Presbyterian Church, Toronto, 1851- 1910 by Alison James

• Directory of Zion United Baptist Church, Yarmouth, N.S.

• Memoir of Br. George Kmoch, missionary in Labrador, who departed this life at Ockbrook, December 21, 1857, in the 88th year of his age