Back in February 2023 I wrote "Beginner's Guide: Finding Ontario Civil Death Registrations". Since then, Ancestry has made available the digitized images for deaths registered in Ontario in 1949 and 1950 in their "Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1949" (as I write this post it still states "1949" in the title) collection as a partner of the Archives of Ontario. Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1949," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Apr 2024), Harry Dempsey, died 27 Dec 1948, Registration o ..read more

Back in 2015 I wrote an article titled "Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions" which pointed folks to the instructions that the enumerators were supposed to follow (operative word here is "supposed"). Over the past 9 years we've had two more Canadian censuses released to the public, Library and Archives Canada has undergone a change to their site, and links to some of the instructions have broken. So here is an update to that article. Seventh census of Canada 1931, instructions to commissioners and enumerators (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1931), c ..read more

With this being a leap year I thought I'd share one of the more interesting calendar related errors I've come across in my travels. It is for the burial of Michael Stafford, who according to the transcription of the record was buried on 30 Feb 1900. Screen capture taken 28 Jan 2024 from Ancestry for the "Ontario, Canada, Roman Catholic Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1923" register page with the entry for Michael Stafford buried 30 Feb 1900 in St. Augustine, Ontario, Canada. As we all know, we can't trust transcriptions so our first thought is that the transcriber of the regist ..read more

Whether you are a new user of Ancestry or someone who has been using their record collections for a number of years, you might not have noticed a feature when viewing images that may have been actually getting in your way. I'm talking about the "Enhanced images" feature. 1861 census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Canada West, Lanark County, district 6, p. 3, John McMullen; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 Feb 2024); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-1042-1043; Ancestry enhanced images ..read more

Every second Tuesday afternoon the Ottawa Public Library and the Ottawa Branch of Ontario Ancestors hosts a one hour in-person Genealogy Drop-In session where we have folks popping by looking for help in their family history and genealogy research. Most of the times the questions are answered right then and there. However, in a few cases it can take a bit of time to actually figure out the right answer or solution to a genealogical mystery. Such was the case from a few weeks ago. One benefit for genealogy and family history researchers who have an Ottawa Public Library card is that we have acc ..read more

After being one of the few countries in the world without access to Google's AI tool, Bard, us folks in Canada now have access to Google's new Gemini AI app on the desktop. Screen capture taken on 8 Feb 2024 of part of the Gemini landing page retrieved using Firefox from a location in Canada. If you are used to using the free version of ChatGPT (version 3.5) then you will be familiar with all the usual gotchas. I'm not going to go into using the tool since much smarter folks with greater understandings on how these tools work have written about AI and Genealogy. Here are just some of ..read more

For most folks researching their kin in the land records of Ontario they are dealing with the records in the counties where we have abstract books organized by township, concession, and lot. That isn't the case for those looking for the land records who settled in the more northern districts of Ontario. So please indulge me as we take a journey to those districts of Ontario and look at their land records. Recently in one of the genealogy groups I frequent on Facebook the following query was posted: Looking for some help to decipher the information in column 3 on this 1901 census, schedule 2.&n ..read more

When we are diving into the land records for what later became the province of Ontario we sometimes come clues written on the part of the petition giving the disposition of the request. Such is the case for the petition for land made by Sheldon Ward in 1825. "Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1763-1865," digital images, Library and Archives Canada Archived - Microform Digitization (https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/microform-digitization/006003-110.02-e.php?&q2=29&interval=50&sk=0& : accessed 28 Jan 2024), Sheldon Ward, 1825, Volume 530, Bundle W 14, Petition 91; RG 1 L3, C ..read more

Back in February 2022 I wrote about "Toronto Trust Cemeteries on FamilySearch" where I discussed using browsing the digitized images to locate records not indexed in that collection of digitized books. However, with the November 2023 changes to the FamilySearch Catalog place names, especially when it comes to places in Ontario, the first part of that post using searching for that collection by place name needs to be updated. Instead of searching by place name we are going to search using the Author field for the words "Toronto Trust Cemeteries" (without the quotes) like this: Screen capt ..read more

Normally we really don't pay much attention to many of the updates to catalogues and databases on genealogy and family history sites since these updates either often don't affect us or the update provides a benefit to us. This isn't the case for those researching in Ontario when FamilySearch updated their Catalog in November 2023 with their "newest FamilySearch place standards". You can read about what this update is supposed to accomplish in their article "What's New with the FamilySearch Catalog". So how does this update affect us? For those researching our kin in Ontario, most won't see ..read more