52 Ancestors: Week 12 – 12 Sites to Further your Canadian Research

I thought at first that this would be a simple post. My trouble was narrowing it down to 12! Canada is the second biggest country in the world, and is quite ethnically diverse. I could probably list 12 French Canadian sites, or 12 military sites, or 12 sites that just deal with a certain geographical area with no problem. We have 13 provinces and territories, and I could probably highlight 12 collections at each one that are wonderful. In the interest of trying to find something that will appeal to everyone, I decided to try and list sites that will give you the most bang for your buck, so to speak. This list is not a \”best of\”, so don\’t be offended if your favourite isn\’t listed. I also won\’t be delving too deeply into any of them. You can explore all they have to offer on your own.

If you\’re new to Canadian research, Library and Archives Canada is our National Archive. No list would be complete without it. Free to use, it has the widest variety of records to help in your research. It\’s very user friendly, and has both online and offline collections. I\’ve highlighted just some of their collections in previous blog posts:

• Immigrant Ancestors: The Canadian Naturalization Records
• Railway Ancestors: Railways Employees (Employees Provident Fund) at the LAC
• Military Ancestors: Courts Martial Records of the First World War at LAC
• Ancestors in Service: Porters and Domestics Records through the LAC
• Research Your Ancestors in the Canada Gazette

This wonderful website has digitized collections of government records, magazines/periodicals, newspapers, and books. It also has photographs, brochures, and pamphlets. Canadian genealogists were ecstatic when they recently changed it to a completely free website.

Click on the Collections tab to access three separate collections:

• Early Canadiana Online
• Canadiana Online
• Heritage

They also have a search engine to find collections from archives and repositories around the country through the Public Collections tab. Clicking on the Student Voice takes you to a portal to search digitization of student newspaper from colleges and universities.

I and every other Canadian genealogist are still exploring all this website has to offer. You can read my posts Library and Archives Canada Microfilms on Heritage Website and Love and Marraige on Canadiana to give you an idea of what you can find on there.

Historical maps are essential in genealogy research. Looking at them gives you clues into further genealogy research. Can\’t find your ancestor in one township or county\’s records? Looking at historical maps can show you boundary changes. Ever wonder why they worshiped at church A, when church B was closer? A map can show you there was a river in between them and church B, so church A was actually easier to get to. 

The Historical Atlas of Canada Online Project is a work in progress. They have been digitizing maps from the 3 volume Historical Atlas of Canada and making them interactive to boot. 

This 3 volume set is on my wish list of \”Things I HAVE to Have\”. However they are kind of pricey. Amazon has them right now at about $90 per volume. Until I can get my hands on them, this website has been immensely helpful. As I said it\’s a work in progress. Keep checking back to see if a map you\’re looking for has been digitized yet.

If you\’re delving into research of the Canadian West, you\’ll want to bookmark Peel\’s Prairie Provinces. Dedicated to the history of the Canadian West, it is hosted by the University of Alberta. According to the website, \”…Peel contains approximately 7,500 digitized books, over 66,000 newspaper issues (4.8 million articles!) 16,000 postcards, and 1,000 maps.\” It\’s a goldmine of information on the various cultural and ethnic groups that settled in the West. My recent blog post Photographs on Peel\’s Prairie Provinces gives an overview of what you can find in their postcard and photo collections.

This one is a go-to for genealogy research in general, not just Canadian. The amount of material you can find on here is makes it a rabbit hole. A lot of genealogical and historical societies have uploaded all forms of media onto it. I\’ve mentioned Internet Archive in many blog posts as a source for different kinds of records. Here are a few:

• Getting Lost in City Directories
• First Nominal Census in Canada
• Military Ancestors: The weekly newspaper \”Canada\”

Canada\’s history and heritage is hugely intertwined with the Hudson\’s Bay Company. Founded in 1670, the HBC had posts in just about every corner of Canada. If your ancestor came over during the l600s and 1700s, there\’s a good possibility that they had some contact with the HBC.

The Hudson\’s Bay Company Archives was given UNESCO status in 2007. There is not a whole lot of their information on line right now, but don\’t despair. Just last month, it was announced that a huge digitization project is going to start. As part of Manitoba\’s 150th anniversary, over 1000 microfilms from the Archives are going to be digitized and put online for free. You can read about the announcement on the CTV News website.

As for what\’s available right now, you can look at the blog post I did called Manitoba Ancestors: Hudson\’s Bay Company Archives.

If you have Maritime Ancestors, check out the Maritime History Archive. They have records that cover both coasts of Canada. If your ancestor came from the UK or the US, there are records that can be found for them on here too. I wrote a 2 part blog post about this great site. You can access Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. 

Not all of us have famous (or infamous) ancestors. So why include this one? I\’ve included this one because your ancestor doesn\’t necessarily have to be a politician, explorer, or captain of industry to be included. If your ancestor came in the early years of Canada, there\’s a good chance they might be in here, or at least mentioned in someone else\’s biography. As an example, I typed \”Landry\” in the search box. This is one of my Acadian surnames. 115 entries are on the website that either involve someone with the surname Landry, or a Landry is mentioned in someone\’s biography that doesn\’t have the surname Landry.

At the bottom of each entry are footnotes showing what sources were used. Now you know where to look for the original information. As well, they also list related biographies to your selected person. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has 22 volumes at the moment. Volumes I to XV are fully online, Volumes XVI to XXII are only partially online.

Simply put, historical newspapers are awesome. And not only to find birth, marriage and death notices. Even if they didn\’t do anything heroic or naughty, you can still find them in the everyday activities of their area. Kenneth Marks runs a blog called The Ancestor Hunt, and has compiled a huge collection of newspaper links for mainly the US and Canada. The link to his newspaper links is here. He also has links for Canadian obituaries, BMDs, and photos. He has helpfully divided the Canadian links by province to make your searches easier.

10. Canada\’s Gen Web Cemetery Project

https://cemetery.canadagenweb.org/

This free site is volunteer run, and has information on over 18,000 cemeteries across Canada. It has a very user friendly set up. Please keep in mind that they do not do research or take photo requests. However, volunteers have posted their willingness to help on their own, and not as part of the site.

For each cemetery listed, they have contact information for the cemetery. They have also listed helpful links on the internet and contact information off the internet for groups and societies that have more information. It\’s a nice starting place for your cemetery research.

11. Canadian Great War Project

http://www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/index.asp

This site says that it is the largest fully searchable database of Canadian men and women that served in WWI. What I find so delightful about the Canadian Great War Project is that they are so many ways to search. It has information not only on the soldiers, but on war diaries, statistical information, and medal information. This is just a sampling of what it has to offer.

Take note though, in the process of modernizing and updating, the site is going through some growing pains. The University of Victoria is helping the site owner, Marc Leroux, with this. It\’s a work in progress so keep visiting the site to see what new things they have to offer.

12. CanLII

https://www.canlii.org/en/index.html

The Canadian Legal Information Institute is a database of court cases across Canada. You can search by keyword and/or province. The years covered varies depending on the province. Most of these cases run from the 1970\’s to the present day. However, you can find some earlier years as well. I found one from Quebec dating back to 1902. A good site for more recent events in your Family Tree, genealogically speaking. You can get a good amount of information on cases, either by PDF of documents, or by transcription. This is by no means a complete database. I could not find anything on their site about adding more historical years of cases, but keep checking back.

What\’s your go-to website? Leave a comment with a link to it.