Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s-1900s

This data set contains over two million records referencing individuals from all regions of Canada, as well as early Alaska. The vast majority of the records fall between 1600 and the mid-to-late 1900s, although some records date before the 1500s. Gleaned during twenty years of research from over one thousand different sources — including city directories, marriage records, land records, census records, and more — this collection of names represents one of the most complete indexes to historical Canadian records available.

This index helps you locate a particular individual at a specific place and point in time. In general, each record in the index tells you about an event, giving the individual's name, and usually also the year and location where the event took place. Each record typically also tells you what the source of this information is, so you can refer to the original materials for more details about the individual. Knowing a name, location, and year, may help you find your ancestor in other records of genealogical value, which are not necessarily included in this index. (Note that some records refer to entire families rather than individuals, and that many of the events are "Living," meaning that the original record is a census, land record, family history, or other item that does not refer to a specific lifetime event.)

This data was provided by The Genealogical Research Library, Inc. of Toronto, Canada. Many of the source documents are available in their collection.

More About this Data Set

Before using this data set, you should be aware of the following: The records on this data set contain some or all of the following information: the individual's name, the type of event, the year and location of the event, comments, the province and county associated with the original records, source and page where the original record can be found.

Name — In some records, you will find three question marks in place of the given name. This indicates that no given name was listed on the original record. In other records, there is a single question mark after a name. This indicates that the interpretation of the name is questionable. In the case of native people, whose names most often cannot be divided into a distinct given name and surname, the entire name appears in the given name field. In place of the surname, you will see a reference such as "Indian" or "Native." Please note that some source documents are family histories, family trees, or other items that refer to family groups rather than individuals. You can generally tell which records these are, because you will only see a surname, such as "Jones" in the name field. However, please note that a few records of this type also have a given name. Thus, if you see a record that contains the surname and location that you are looking for, but not the correct given name, you may want to look at the "Comments" and "Source" fields to see if they refer to a family-oriented source document.

Year — This field indicates when the event took place. Combined with the location field, the year helps you pinpoint the individual at a specific point and place in time. Please note that some dates are incomplete or missing, and other dates have qualifiers such as "Abt," "Bef," or "Aft." Questionable dates are followed by a question mark. Checking the original source may help you clarify these uncertain dates. In some records you will see a year range instead of a single year. These ranges can span up to hundreds of years. This is often the case when the source document is a family history or pedigree. A missing date often also indicates that the source document is family-oriented.

Event — This field can contain any of the following values: "Living," "Born," "Baptized," "Buried," "Christened," "Confirmed," "Died," "Emigrated," "Immigrated," and "Married." You will also see the term "Living" quite often. It can refer to a variety of record types, such as a census or land record, or even a complete family history, which would contain multiple events. The information in the Source field (see #8 below) tells you where to find the original records, so you can learn more about the listed event. In some cases the Event field is blank. This can often indicate that the document is a family history or pedigree, and so refers to several events.

Place of Event — This field tells you where the event took place. It can be listed as a province, county, township, town, city, geographic location, street, district, ward, etc. Often instead of just the name of a city, for example, you might see the name of a city and its province, as in "Toronto, Ontario." Please note that in some records, the "Place of Event" is different than the location with which the original record source is associated (see #5 and #6 below). Also, because the records sometimes did not originate in Canada, you will see foreign locations in this field.

Province of Record Source — This is the province associated with the original record source. In most cases, this is the same as the location where the event took place. However, there are times when it may be different. For example, a book about an Ontario family may indicate that an individual was born in England. Thus, the "Place of Event" field for that birth would say "England," but the "Province of Record Source" field would still say "Ontario," because the book is about an Ontario family. Please note that you may see references to "Labrador" and "Canada," although these are not provinces.

County of Record Source — This is the county associated with the original record source. Approximately half of the records contain this information. See #5 above for details.

Comments — This field can list a variety of information or it can be empty, depending on the original record. Types of information that you might see include titles, occupations, ethnicities, and details about sources. You may also find references to alternate name spellings. These usually appear in the form of "see ...."

Source — The information in this field tells you in which book, record collection, or other source the record appears. The types of sources you will encounter include the following: historical texts, birth records, death records, cemetery records, newspaper extracts, family histories, family trees, genealogical collections, historical atlases, church records, historical journals, city directories, marriage records, land records, and census records. It is always a good idea to look up these sources because there is often additional information in the original records. This information may help you verify that you have actually found one of your ancestors, and not just someone with the same name.

Volume/Page — The volume and page number tell you where in the record source you can find the reference to the individual. Some individuals appear more than once in the original source, so this field can contain multiple page or record numbers.

Soundex — The Soundex code for the individual's name appears in the bottom right corner of the screen.