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April 16, 2009

COMPLETE Canadian Census 1851-1916 Coming Online in June!

On Wednesday the 10th of June, 2009, Ancestry.ca in partnership with the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is holding a media event in Toronto to launch online the
complete Canadian Censuses from 1851 to 1916.

This collection represents a significant and historic first for Canadians. It is the first time that all available national Censuses will be searchable online, fully indexed in their entirety in one place, making it possible for people all over the country and the world to research their Canadian roots faster and easier than ever before from the comfort of their computers.

Olive Tree Genealogy will be posting more details as I get them. Ancestry.com will also no doubt have the census records available for searching as well.

Stay tuned!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they will be available at the LAC site for free, or only via Ancestry or some other site for a fee.

Olive Tree Genealogy said...

I'm sure that the images as usual will be freely available on LAC. The indexes will likely start out only on Ancestry but whether they will eventually be shared with LAC we will have to wait and see

Anonymous said...

This is great news. Even if it is on Ancestry.com, most libraries have the library edition and the only cost is printing copies of the census at the library. When I could no longer afford a subscription to Ancestory, I started going to the library and it is much more afforadable.

Anonymous said...

If it is dealing with Ancestry.com that means spending a lot of money

Anonymous said...

I can hardly wait; although I've found most of my ancestors in all the censuses already viewing the microfilms at the library. Also, getting the Canadian subscription is much cheaper then the World Deluxe - only $49/Cdn a year. Great when your only search area is Canada.

Lee-Ann said...

That was very interesting about your Grandmother. I am glad to hear it ended well...I have never heard of that till now. Thank-you for sharing your story!

Anonymous said...

Complete as in all the census records even when not published already, e.g., 1871? All as in All Ontario?(how many times has Ont data stood proxy for all of Canada)? I look forward to this! and for those who dont know, Archives Canada has several years of censuses on line and free.

Olive Tree Genealogy said...

1871 census is not available online, all that is available is the INDEX to heads of household in 1871. Ancestry is bringing an all-name index plus images online.

I talked about several of Library & Archives Canada census years being available online, for example this post about 1881 Census

Anonymous said...

I think since the census is a government funded thing, paid with our tax dollars they should have to be free for the public to view. I don't agree with anyone making money off of them.

Olive Tree Genealogy said...

The census has to be scanned, which means many hundreds of hours plus staff to do the scanning. Then they have to be indexed - that is a huge job.

Then they have to be given space on a server (which requires $ to maintain) and be set up as searchable, meaning more cost to whoever does all this. There is always ongoing maintenance associated with putting any database online. All these things cost money.

Any company willing to put out big bucks to do all this is of course going to want to make money in exchange. That's free enterprise.

We should be darn glad that the records have finally come online! If we waited for a government agency to do this, we'd be waiting a very long time.

Anonymous said...

I'm in a suburb of Chicago and use "Ancestry Library Edition" at my local library. It's free and has all the info you would get as a paid, individual subscriber. Most recently (Sept '09)I've been looking at the Censuses from 1851 et al.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately they did NOT index the 1901 or 1911 Canadian Census records by surname. It is indexed by LOCATION rather than by surname. So unless you know EXACTLY where the person in question lived at that time it is absolutely useless. Who was the genius who decided that indexing by LOCATION was the way to go? Whoever it was......they aren't too bright.

Olive Tree Genealogy said...

re indexing by location only - I'm afraid you're confused. It is the LAC (Library and Archives Canada) site that originally indexed by location. Ancestry.com has indexed by many fields, including names - and has brought all years of the Canadian census online

Unknown said...

How can someone view the 1842, 1820 and 1817 census for Lanark County. Thank you so much (in advance) for any direction.