The Resources At The Canadian Genealogy Centre

The Canadian Genealogy Centre is an online resource for anyone in the world who wants to identify their Canadian ancestors and learn more about them. A variety of databases and records are available through the Canadian Genealogy Centre. This guide will help you navigate the site.

What You Can Do

The most popular activity on the Canadian Genealogy Centre is searching for ancestors. By using the Centre’s combined genealogical database search, you can search for a wide variety of government records. Since the records were collected and maintained by the Library and Archives Canada, they have a high degree of reliability and trustworthiness.

Ancestors Search Database

Using the Canadian Genealogy Centre's Ancestors Search database, you can search for all kinds of events like births, marriage bonds made between 1779 and 1865, deaths, and divorces between 1841 and 1968. Researchers can search land records like the Gaspe Land Commission records from 1626 to 1841, Lower Canada land petitions from 1826 to 1865, and Western Land Grants from 1870 to 1930. This is by far the most extensive database available to Canadians researching their genealogy.

Searchable immigration and citizenship registration records at the Canadian Genealogy Centre include records for the Montreal Circuit Courts from 1851 to 1945; Home Children records from 1869 to 1930; the Montreal Emigrant Society Passage Book of 1832; records of immigrants from the Russian Empire and immigrants at Grosse-Ile from 1832 to 1937, and generalized immigration records from 1925 to 1935.

Searchable military records include lists of courts martial and soldiers from the First World War and soldiers from the South African War.

Census Records

Old census records provide a huge wealth of information about your Canadian ancestors. Census returns collected in 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901, 1906, and 1911 list every individual by name and provide each person’s age, sex, birth country or province, racial or ethnic origin, occupation, and marital status. Census records for 1901 and 1911 also include the individual’s birth date, year of immigration, and location of land. Be advised that the 1851 Census is incomplete, as portions of the records were destroyed.

The Newspaper Obituaries

Newspaper obituaries are also available through the Canadian Genealogy Centre’s online databases. If you find a newspaper obituary for one of your ancestors, you could be very fortunate indeed. Many obituaries give details about the deceased's survivors, their military service, their employment, and names of family members – especially spouses – who predeceased the individual.

The Canadian Genealogy Centre is an outstanding research for the amateur genealogy researcher.

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