A Canadian Family

Genealogy, Family History & Vintage Postcards

Canadian Census Resources – at your fingertips and free-of-charge!

CENSUS DOCUMENTS IN CANADA

Are you looking for a relatively easy way to learn a little bit more about your ancestors?

You’ll be happy to learn that some of the richest sources of information are census records and that many of these are available online and free-of-charge.

Depending on which census you consult, you may find your ancestors’ birth dates, ethnicity, language, occupations and/or religion. You can also study their household’s overall composition (e.g. large or small family units, single or multi-generational) and the makeup of the neighbourhoods they live in (e.g. ethnicity, occupations). Finally, if you compare census data from different years you may notice trends that cross the generations (e.g. decreasing family sizes, increasing urbanization).

New to genealogy? Then a note of caution is in order – there are many errors in census returns. Errors could be made by your ancestors (especially if they were illiterate), by the census takers (especially if they spoke a different language) and lastly – if you are using indexes – many errors slip through when the original records are being indexed. Indexes are great and we owe a tremendous thank-you to everyone who has worked on them – but once you’ve found your ancestors there’s nothing better than looking at the original (microfilmed) records for yourself.

So what about the census in Canada?

The first census in what is now Canada was taken in Nouvelle France by Intendant Jean Talon in 1666. There were more than 30 censuses during this French period. These are not the focus of this article, but if you are looking for information about this early period – especially for what concerns Acadia, then you can find information in Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s article Acadian Census Records

Once the British took control they began with their own census of 1765.These continued periodically until the first Canadian national census which took place in 1871 just four years after confederation. In this modern period we’ve had one Canadian census every ten years (i.e. 1881, 1891) until 1956 when the government increased their frequency to every five years to reflect the increasing pace of change.

At the beginning of this century census documents were difficult to consult. Understandably, curators didn’t want people touching the originals so a solution was found – microfilming – and people could now consult these at certain libraries. This was a boon to genealogists, nevertheless access was still a challenge until the internet came along and different organizations began to post digitized images and/or indexes online.

So, which modern Canadian censuses are available at your fingertips and free-of-charge?

Automated Genealogy – Indices Canadian Censuses 1851/1852 – 1901 – 1906 – 1911

 

Family Search – Index Canadian Census 1881

 

Have fun!


March 12, 2009 Posted by | . | , | 2 Comments

A Canadian Family in the Census: 1911 Lagace – Doucet

The 1911 census shows a Joseph J. and Elizabeth Legacy who were living in Bathurst, Gloucester County, New Brunswick with their children Adelard, Amanda, Lorette, Arthur, Martina, Francis, Joseph, William and Mary. We know this couple as Joseph Lagace and Elizabeth Doucet and in our lineage, they are the 8th generation of Lagaces in Canada.

The census confirms what we already knew– that the Lagaces were Catholic, French-speaking New Brunswickers living in a rural area near Bathurst, but I’ve also learned that they understood two languages (French and English) and that they could read and write.

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A Canadian Family Vintage Postcard Collection

Something else we knew was that Joseph was working as a labourer at the Bathurst Lumber Mill and that he earned his living there for most of his adult working life. What we didn’t know, however, was that his son Adelard was already working there even though he was only 16 years old.

In addition a closer inspection of the document shows that Adelard and his son worked 60 hour work weeks. It’s hard to imagine doing such hard work for that many hours per week and I wonder whether the work was distributed over a five or six day work week? The census form doesn’t have that information but it does tell us that in 1910 Joseph worked only 20 weeks at the mill, whereas his son worked 32 weeks. I notice also that many of their neighbours worked twice as many weeks (in 1910) so it would be interesting to know whether Adelard and his son worked less hours by choice. You might wonder how much Adelard and his son earned for their labour. According to the census record their total earning for the year 1910 were: Joseph – $210 and Adelard – $192. Read more »

January 15, 2009 Posted by | . | , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Making sense of the census

I know that some of you are itching to do some hands-on genealogy so yesterday I uploaded a census page with general information and links to online Canadian censuses.  In that page (see right sidebar Census) I mentioned that the censuses are “a rich source of information” but what I didn’t mention is that the information you find can be both confusing and contradictory.

Why is that?

In genealogy we base as much of our information as possible on primary sources. A primary source is a “document, recording or other source of information (paper, picture … etc.) that was created at the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described” (ref: Wikipedia, Primary sources).  Using that definition the census is a primary document because it’s a record of what the census taker and person believed to be true on the day the census was taken. However I (like most family historians) have found numerous errors in the censuses. In our family records the most frequent types of census errors are:

1) Birthdates  Whether because they had large families or were uneducated, most of our ancestors seemed unconcerned about their precise birthdates! 

2) Spelling  As many of our ancestors were illiterate the census taker would sometimes use the most common local spelling or write down his own phonetic equivalent. Finally, some census takers gave an anglicized version of the name (e.g. Luce = Lewis).

So when you are trying to establish, for instance, an ancestor’s date and place of birth, the ideal primary source would be something like a birth or baptismal certificate. The census is a second-best source as it’s based on the person’s personal knowledge.  However, as long as you keep these limits in mind, the census is a precious source for all kinds of information you night not find elsewhere (e.g. ancestor’s occupation) and can point you in new research directions.

Ready for some fun?

This is a sampling of records from one of our ancestors. Do you notice any differences between the censuses. Can you identify which ancestor I’m tracking?  Hint: The ancestor is listed in one of the lineages in the SURNAME pages to the right. 

Here’s our mystery ancestor in a microfilm of the most recent available census from 1911

1911theriaultbetter

And here’s the same ancestor again in this microfilm of the 1901 census …

theriault19012

… and once again in 1881. 

Philip TARRIO  M  Male  French  26  New Brunswick  Labouror  Roman Catholic  

Maggy TARRIO  M  Female  French  22  New Brunswick    Roman Catholic  

Alexander TARRIO    Male  French  2  Prince Edward Island    Roman Catholic  

Micheal TARRIO    Male  French  1  Prince Edward Island    Roman Catholic 

This last data is from a transcribed  index, so it’s not a primary document.

And I think that’s enough fun for one day – don’t you?

F.Y.I.

Links to all the free-of-charge online censuses are on the

Canadian Genealogy – Census page

in the sidebar to your far right.

 

Surname var.: Theriault, Tarrio, Therriault

January 1, 2009 Posted by | . | , , , | Leave a Comment