52 Ancestors: Week 23 - Place Names and Social Histories in Canada

We become so focused on the history of our family members that we don't always look closely enough at the history of the region they lived. If you're guilty of this, then you may be missing out on important clues as to why your ancestor settled in a particular place. This week's 52 Ancestor's prompt is "Namesake", so I decided to look at place name and social history resources.

Why look at social histories? These histories give you background on the first settlers of a region. You may even be lucky enough to have your ancestor named. So how does this fit into this week's theme, "Namesake"? Because sometimes looking at the name of a city or town can give you additional insight into those settlers. In some instances, a town may have gone through several name changes. The farther back in your Canadian research you go, knowing possible name and boundary changes becomes more important. For example, the City of Kawartha Lakes in Ontario used to be called Victoria County. Within the City of Kawartha Lakes is a community called Lindsay. It was so named because a surveyor's assistant by the surname of Lindsay died there in 1834 and the new town became named after him. But before that, it was a village called Purdy's Mills. An American family by the last name of Purdy settled there and built a dam, a sawmill, and a grist mill, which the village grew around. Another example is Kitchener, Ontario. Before 1916, it was called Berlin. As you might have guessed, some of the original settlers were of German descent.

Below are some of the ways to look for place and social histories:

Family Search
Family Search has a searchable digital library on their website. Type in your place name of interest to see what they have. Use the menu on the left to find the ones that are public access and can be read online.


Peel's Prairie Provinces
Go to their section on books. You can either search by place name, or you can browse their collection. Both can be done by author, title, or subject.


Global Genealogy
If you want to own a copy of a place history, check out Global Genealogy. This Canadian site has hundreds of books relating not only place/ social histories, but family genealogies and methodology as well. Options for purchase can include hard copy, CD, or PDF download.


Wikipedia
Now good old Wikipedia can steer you wrong sometimes. But it can still be a good resource. What you want to focus on is the source citations at the end of their articles. These can lead you to other sources. Try typing in a place name and see what turns up. You can check out their page List of Canada city name etymologies to get you started.


Canadiana
Among all the thousands of treasures on Canadiana are place and social histories. Type your place in the search engine, then use the menu on the left to narrow down to monographs. When I typed in "Tracadie", I initially got over 3000 hits.  By narrowing down to monographs, I was able to find several books on the Tracadie area of New Brunswick.


Ancestry
Instead of searching records, go instead to the card catalogue. Use the menu on the left to narrow your research to find the place histories. There are over 1,500 publications dealing with social and place histories in Canada.


HathiTrust Digital library
If you haven't heard of HathiTrust, you need to look at their website. It is a partnership of research and academic institutions from around the world. Their aim is to digitize books from these libraries and make them available to all.


Internet Archive
This list wouldn't be complete without Internet Archive. More and more Canadian Libraries have been uploading their collections to the website. Click here to access the list of Canadian Libraries and what they have online through Internet Archive.


Find My Past
After their initial misstep in lumping Canadian and US records together, Find My Past has been quietly building a Canadian collection of records. Search the A-Z section of the record sets, then narrow to Canada, then by province. There are not a lot in their collection but they do have some interesting titles


And don't forget to check provincial and local archives. Some of the archive websites, such as the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, have place histories.

Laying the Groundwork- Census Records Part 2

Last week we looked at what kind of information can be found on a census return. Now we're going to look at where to find them.


1851-1921

• Library and Archives Canada

 The LAC is the first place any genealogist should go. They have all census records from 1851 to 1916 digitized, as well as the link to the free access to the 1921 census on Ancestry. A word of caution though. They don't use soundex. Make sure you enter several variations of surnames, and use wildcards. For example, when I enter MALLAIS into the 1911 census search engine I get 66 results Canada wide. When I enter MAILLET I get 3,700 results that don't include the 66 from MALLAIS.

• Ancestry

Ancestry has 1851 to 1916 for subscribers, and 1921 is free to everyone. It is better than LAC in that they will do soundex, but the downside is their indexing. Some years are better than others. Be warned especially if you are looking for French Canadian names. Sometimes you'll have to do it the old fashioned way by browsing instead of a name search. One memorable example is my great grandfather Patrice Joseph MALLAIS. In 1911 he was indexed as PAHIQUE MALLARS, of all things. Every time I tried to search for him in 1911 I got his nephew Patrice Mallais. It wasn't until I started browsing the area where I knew he lived, page by page, that I found my Patrice.

• FamilySearch

FamilySearch has indexed from 1851-1916. There are no images available. It is a good resource in that FamilySearch indexing is very good. However, you will not be able to see the wealth of information like I listed last week in the entries for Arthur WOOD. They have indexed only certain information. This is what it said for Arthur in 1911:

Arthur Wood

Canada Census, 1911

Name	Arthur Wood
Event Type	Census
Event Date	1911
Event Place	Peel Sub-Districts 32-39, Ontario, Canada
Gender	Male
Age (Estimated)	47
Marital Status	Married
Relationship to Head of Household	Head
Birth Date	Sep 1864
Birthplace	England

"Recensement du Canada de 1911," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:276J-JF1 : 2 March 2015), Arthur Wood, 1911; citing Census, Peel Sub-Districts 32-39, Ontario, Canada, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; FHL microfilm 2,418,517.

It also did show the entire household, with links to each person's information.

• Automated Genealogy

This site has 1851, 1901, 1906, and 1921 transcribed. They are at various stages of completion. There are no images. By following the link above to their site, you can see what they have for each. An interesting side project of theirs is a huge linking project. One day you'll be able to type in a name, and all census records (and some other databases) for that person will be there for you to view.

• Find My Past

Though mainly for UK research, Find My Past has started building a Canadian record collection. Right now you can access transcriptions of 1901 and 1911.

Pre 1851

There are very few census records pre 1851. Most of those that have survived were locally done with a specific purpose in mind. They would most likely fall under the category of tax and poll lists.

Library and Archives Canada has census images for 1825 and 1831 for Lower Canada (Quebec). They also have 1842 for Canada East (Quebec) and Canada West (Ontario).

Ancestry has links to the Family Search images of the 1825 Lower Canada Census and the 1842 Canada East census. They also have the images for the 1770 Nova Scotia Census, indexed and copied by Bernice Richard for the Chicago Genealogical Society. The final database in their Canada census collection is the "Nova Scotia, Canada, Census, Assessment and Poll Tax Records, 1770-1795, 1827". There are links that take you to the Nova Scotia Archives' images.

Family Search has images for 1825, 1831, and 1842.

Find My Past has images and transcriptions for the 1825 Lower Canada Census.

Among the many BMD's in the Drouin Collection, are some partial census records. Ancestry has some of these. They are NOT indexed, so you will have to browse through the Acadia Drouin collection. You can also access Drouin records at Genealogy Quebec.

You can also try looking at various Provincial Archives and local Societies for early census and tax roll records. Remember that it may not be digitized online. You may have to use interlibrary loan if available, or go there in person.

A Final Note

Just a few things to keep in mind when researching census records:

1. Language: If you have French Canadian ancestry, then you know what I'm talking about. Many French names were anglicized by census takers. Always look at the top of the page to see the name of the enumerator. If they were English and doing a predominately French area, you will see this a lot. Going back to Patrice Mallais, in 1921 he was written as Patrick Malley. In 1861, my ancestor Guillaume Fournier was written down as William Fourney by the census taker.
2. Name Variations; A lot of people were illiterate, and therefore probably could not spell their own name for the census taker. So he wrote it how he thought it was spelled. Just because you spell your name the way you do, doesn't mean that the census enumerator did. So look for different variations. Don't just try SMITH, but try SMYTH too.
3. Availability: Not all census records survived. Library and Archives Canada has great explanations on what is and isn't available for each census. I was crushed to learn that none of Gloucester County, New Brunswick survived for 1851. A huge part of my tree had settled there.