Tuesday, July 22, 2008

New 1891 Canadian Census Index - Ancestry.com

Well, we have been busy this week at the B.C. Genealogical Society's Library Week (come & meet the volunteers if you're in the Lower Mainland), but I had to have a look tonight to see if I could find anyone 'new' in the 1891 Canadian census, since Ancestry.com has just put up an index today with linked images.

The press release in fact says that:
"The Generations Network Inc. acquired the online rights to the 1891 Census of Canada from the Library and Archives of Canada (LAC) in Ottawa, Ontario. "

'...the online rights'...can this be true? Which specific rights, I wonder... (Yes, I will ask.)

Never mind that - for the moment. I am usually happy to see another index, especially one which is for records not completely indexed before. Yes, parts of the 1891 Canadian census are indexed - British Columbia, for example - although not all these are available on the web.

There's my Na in Manitoba with her parents and siblings - 'Amy Stella' she was then - but I am a bit concerned that my ancestors are indexed as 'Free Church' although I don't seem to see that anywhere on these particular census sheets - 'C Presb' or 'Presbyterian', is what's there most often.

I tried "free church" as a key word search - there are 700,635 of them listed - well, maybe there were one or two 'free thinkers' mixed in? But no - there were apparently 823 free thinkers (or freethinkers, it doesn't seem to matter) and 8,564 'Presbyterians' (they seem a bit of a mixed bag).

Funny, I just went through the tutorial for a big company's new indexing project and heard a reminder to enter the data as shown on the page. Ah, well. Back to my searches...


"World first: 1891 Canadian national census launches online - Ancestry.ca"
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2008/22/c6397.html

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