Nordic Genealogy Conference 2020 - Scandinavian Research in Canada - Place Names

 First, a reminder - it's almost time for the VIRTUAL NORDIC GENEALOGY CONFERENCE. 

September 26-27, 2020 - Registration and details: https://www.nordicmuseum.org/genealogyconference

For my session on Researching Scandinavians in Canada, there will be a handout.  Over the next week, I'm featuring daily a tip or source to help with researching in Canada. And on this website, you can check out my page of Canada Genealogy - Essentials for more Canadian genealogy and family history sources.

Today is about Canadian place names. (I'm intending to do maps in a later article.)  When you find an unfamiliar Canadian place name in a document or book or a family tree, where do you go to find out where that place is (or was)? Or worse, what if you find a written place name you can't quite make out? 

Here is my first online choice. The Geographical Names in Canada database of Natural Resources Canada lets you search by name, likely the most popular search, and if you only know part of the name, use the wild cards to broaden the search -* for any character sequence or ? for a single character).

If you couldn't read all of Sointula, for instance, a search for S*tul? might give you a lot of results. But narrowing this down to British Columbia, if you already knew the Province, or by Populated Place (and I'd add Unclassified) for Feature Type, just in case, and All for the Status - only one result. (They won't all be that easy.) 

Sointula Rupert Land District British Columbia Community Official

Clicking on the Sointula result takes us to a page with a map and much more geographical information, including a search for nearby place names. You will soon see that the nearest community is 6 km away, and the nearest town 7 km, the nearest city, over 270 km. 

If you knew a family lived in a town near the Riding Mountains in Manitoba, you could search for occupied places nearby. Or if you have family homestead details, you could do the same to find out where they may have sold their grain, or likely got their mail if you haven't found that in any other sources or want to confirm.

Each Canadian province and territory has a department for its own place names and participates in the Geographical Names Board of Canada which authorizes place names in Canada. There is much more information about this on the website. 

Here is the list of all the provincial and territorial geographic websites and contacts. If you go to British Columbia's website, what more can you find out about Sointula? 

Another source I like for occupied place names is Library and Archives Canada's searchable database of Post Offices and Postmasters (also Post Mistresses) for most of the years from 1851 to 1981. No records survive for 1875 to 1902. This search tells you when a post office was authorized, usually once the area's population had grown a bit, and who was appointed as postmaster over the years. And may include more genealogical information. Library and Archives Canada or other archives may have other related records. Here is a newspaper article about Sointula's first postmaster, a Finlander.  

Dr. O. H. Beckman, on his way to Malcolm Island, in British Columbia. (Sointula), June 1902. Thu, Jun 12, 1902 – 3 · Nanaimo Daily News (Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada) · Newspapers.com