Historical Canada Census Data, 1851-1916

In partnership with the Government of Canada, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Ancestry.ca completed the world-first online launch of the Historical Canada Census Data from 1851-1916. All of the nine available national census were published online in June 2009, fully indexed and including original document images. The census data contain more than 32 million names of those living in Canada from the mid 19th century through to the early 20th century which was a period of nationhood, new arrivals, great change and significant growth. 

It is estimated that half of all living Canadians (about 16 million people) will be able to trace their ancestors in the census data. Digitizing and indexing the nine census data, which contain a range of information about individuals, families and residents living at a particular address, took an estimated 600,000 hours to complete. FamilySearch International also worked on this ambitious project to deliver the images and indexes for the 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1916 Census. 

Making all the historical censuses available and fully searchable online enables both new and advanced family history researchers to learn more about all members of a given household including family, lodgers and helpers, on the day that census was taken. For many, this will mean having first-time access to vital information to help them search and map their personal history of family members, their ages, occupations, religions, native tongue and ethnicity, addresses and house type, their parents birthplace where applicable, and immigration year and military service (in selected census years) at both given and multiple points in time.

Exploring Our Ancestry – Genealogy Internet Resources

CanadaGenWeb

GenWeb projects now exist for dozens of countries worldwide. The purpose of each GenWeb Project is to create a global library for genealogy research on the Internet. The CanadaGenWeb Project was established in 1996. The goal was the collection and distribution of genealogical data available online. Researchers in Canada are very fortunate because there is an enormous amount of Canadian information available on the Internet. The role of the Canada GenWeb Project is to assist researchers in locating this information, as well as to add to the existing online data. CanadaGenWeb is organized into regional GenWeb’s. The national site is the gateway linking to each Canadian province and territory GenWeb.

Family Search

FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use these records, resources and services to learn more about their family history. To help, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through more than 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

FamilySearch has 6.875 billion historic records on microfilm that are being digitized and eventually indexed. These records contain an estimated 20.6 billion names. FamilySearch has over 200 digital record preservation camera teams in 45 countries who produce more than 100 million new digital images for free online publication each year. The FamilySearch Indexing program is available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish with more language interfaces and international projects coming.