Canadiana: Canadian Digital Archive and Portal to the Past
Do you have Canadian roots? Then Canadiana should be on your list of online resources searched regularly for family history information.
Recently Newswire.ca described Canadiana as “a digital initiative of extraordinary scale,…a joint effort of 25 leading research institutions, libraries and archives working together with the goal of creating Canada’s multi-million page, comprehensive online archive.” Its digital collections chronicle Canada’s past since the 1600s and most of its content is free.
What we especially noticed in a recent peek at this enormous Canadian digital archive:
- The Héritage Project. This FREE resource “aims to digitize, preserve and make accessible Canada’s archival materials for Canadians and the world. Héritage is also a pathfinder project to determine the best ways to organize and fund ongoing efforts to make all of Canada’s remaining documentary heritage accessible online.” Their large collection of genealogy materials so far includes immigration records, church records, land records, family histories, voters’ lists and more. Military history, government documents and aboriginal records are also well-represented. Tip: check back often! More is coming, like local and regional newspaper digitization and records of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces.
- The Canadiana Discovery Portal. This gateway to digital collections from 40 repositories points to 65 million pages! Sample subjects include Ontario genealogy and War of 1812 campaigns. This portal is also free to use.
- Early Canadiana Online, with 5 million images already and expected to grow to 16 million. This part of the website requires a subscription ($10/month or a year for $100) This is “a full-text collection of published documentary material, including monographs, government documents, and specialized or mass-market periodicals from the 16th to 20th centuries. Law, literature, religion, education, women’s history and aboriginal history are particular areas of strength.” The site describes itself as “the most complete set of full-text historical content about Canada, including books, magazines and government documents.” Tip: scroll down on the home page to click the Genealogy and Local History portal, but don’t ignore the rest of the site!
Like this post? Here’s a few more posts you may enjoy:
- Can Google Help Me Search Digitized Newspaper Pages?
- Google Earth for Canada and Genealogy
- Find a Grave Canada: Now Search by Province!
- Voices of the Past: Canadian Oral History Project
- Over a Million Canadian Passenger Lists Now Online
- 71,000 Pages of Canadian Genealogy and History Now Online
If more posts like these are what you’re looking for, sign up for our free email newsletter. You’ll get Lisa Louise Cooke’s free Google Research e-book when you do! From our home page, enter your email in the sign-up box.
Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 258 DNA Problem Solving
DNA Problem Solving Strategies for Genealogy
Do you have a ton of DNA matches and you’re not sure what to do with them? How do you keep track of all those matches? Would you like to know which matches to focus on? In this audio podcast episode Sara Allen of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library joins me to share strategies that help answer these questions.
Listen to Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 258
To Listen click the media player below (AUDIO ONLY):
Watch the Original Video
This audio comes from my YouTube video series Elevenses with Lisa episode 44. You can watch the video interview at the Elevenses with Lisa episode 44 show notes page.
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Search for Early New England Ancestors FREE this Coming Week
In honor of Independence Day in the United States, AmericanAncestors.org is offering free access to databases on early New England ancestors starting TODAY through July 8.
If you have Mayflower, Pilgrim or Puritan ancestors (or want to confirm the rumor that you do!), you’ll want to take advantage of this offer from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. For many years the society has been researching “the 20,000 men, women, and children who crossed the Atlantic between 1620 and 1640, seeking opportunity and relief in New England.”
The Great Migration Study Project, as their work is known, has resulted in several databases, nine of which are open to the public for FREE during the first week of July 2015:
The Great Migration Begins. This database “attempts to identify and describe all those Europeans who settled in New England prior to the end of 1633,” states an NEHGS press release. “As a rough estimate, about 15 percent of the immigrants to New England arrived in the fourteen years from 1620 to 1633, with the remaining 85 percent coming over in half as many years, from 1634 to 1640.”
The Great Migration Newsletter. “This database comprises Volumes 1 through 20 of the Great Migration Newsletter, published between 1990 and 2011. Each 32-page issue contains one or two feature articles, a column with editor’s comments, and a review of recent literature on the Great Migration. Each issue also contains a section with detailed coverage of one of the towns settled during the Great Migration, or of a specific critical record, or group of records.”
The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes I—VII, A-Y. (7 separate databases) “As many as 2,500 people immigrated in 1634 and again in 1635….In May 1634, the population of Massachusetts doubled in just one month….Each alphabetical entry for a family or individual includes:
- Place of origin, if known
- Date and ship on which they arrived in New England, if known
- Earliest known record of the individual or family
- First residence and subsequent residences, when known
- Return trips to their country of origin, whether temporary or permanent
- Bibliographical information such as birth, death, marriage(s), children, and other important family relationships, church memberships, and civil and military offices held.”
Click here to access these databases for free between July 1-8, 2015. (Registration at AmericanAncestors.org is required as a FREE Guest Member.)
Looking for more FREE New England genealogy resources? Check out these blog posts!