THE TRUE NORTH
Whether your Canadian ancestors were First Nations peoples, early French settlers, Loyalists seeking refuge after the American Revolutionary War, or more recent immigrants from the Ukraine or elsewhere, records probably exist to tell their stories.
And many of those records are now online. Church records of baptisms, marriages and burials in Quebec go back to the early fur traders. Muster rolls and land petitions document the Loyalist experience. Census and vital records reveal key facts about 19th- and 20th-century Canadians. And large collections of newspapers, journals and books give us a glimpse into the daily lives of all of them.
The following list includes 14 of the best websites for researching your Canadian ancestry, separated into five categories. Websites that require a paid subscription are indicated with $.
ARCHIVES
1. Library and Archives Canada
Among the largest libraries in the world, Library and Archives Canada functions as the equivalent of the US Library of Congress and the National Archives—combined. To access the site’s collections, click Search the Collection from the main menu, then Ancestors Search from the dropdown.
Collections here include birth, marriage and death records; acts of divorce from 1841 to 1968; census records from 1770 to 1926; immigration and citizenship records from 1828 to 1949; land records from 1763 to 1930; and military records from 1772 to 1969. Some records are linked to digitized images.
A search of the 1906 census of the Northwest Provinces (Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan) turns up my ancestors J. A. Grant and “Mrs. J. A. Grant.” Both are age 76 and were born in New Brunswick, living with a son and daughter-in-law in the district of Strathcona, Alberta, post office Lewisville. The
