Researching your past has never been easier
Randy Shore
Sun
Anyone with roots in B.C. can search the provincial archives online for birth records, death and marriage registrations. Copies of the original documents can be ordered for a fee.
Each record has the potential to extend your family tree back one generation. Birth and marriage records usually contain the principals’ birthplace, as well as the names of parents. Use those clues to search for births and marriages of the parents and you get the names of the parents’ parents, and so on.
Rural birth records can be spotty but there are easy workarounds. Baptismal records often list the birthdate and birthplace, even when no birth has been officially registered.
Then there is the census. If you know what city or town your ancestors hail from, you can read the original handwritten ledgers online and the picture those records paint is beyond compare.
The Mormon church has an extraordinary website that includes birth, death and transcribed census records from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The census data includes every person living at a particular residence on a given date, providing a nice window into family life in the late 19th and early 20th century, including the children, hired hands, lodgers, and displaced cousins. Hyperlinking makes it easy to cross-reference between databases.
The provincial archives also have a searchable database of photographs, so if you turn up a famous relative, you might even find a picture. The City of Vancouver archives are also searchable. Local museums in your ancestors’ hometown are also rich hunting grounds for traces of the past.
War service records are available from the National Archive, right from the attestation papers recruits signed when they joined up (complete with chest measurements, hair colour and tattoos) to entire service records and commendations. Officers’ logs (war diaries) and intelligence reports have also been scanned.
You’ll need to play detective to find your way through the records. Be prepared to make the odd leap of faith. Records contain errors of spelling and omission. The people who fill out forms will sometimes guess at data they didn’t have at hand. Trust your gut.
Here are the best references to start your search
– http://search.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca
Births, deaths, marriages and baptisms in B.C.
– http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
CENSUS, WAR RECORDS, IMMIGRATION RECORDS, LAND GRANTS
– http://www.familysearch.org/
The genealogy project run by the Church of Latter Day Saints. Combines births, deaths, marriages, and census data in an integrated way. If your family slipped back and forth between the U.S. and Canada, this database can be useful.
– http://www.censusfinder.com
Choose a province and follow the links to access the handwritten ledgers from local census areas. This is painstaking work.
– http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/
Collections of documents and photographs, searchable online.
MARRIAGE REGISTRATION
Legal name – many records will use nicknames like “Annie” for Annabeth.
Age – can be used to estimate a birthdate in search for baptismal and birth records.
Birthplace – use this to find original census records.
Parent names – takes you back one more generation. Having both names makes it easier to confirm marriage records.
Witness names – these are sometimes friends, but often they are siblings you may not have known about. Their hometowns are a clue to where you might look for relatives.
Faith and clergyman – could lead you to church records, including other marriages and baptisms.
MILITARY SERVICE ATTESTATION – PARTICULARS OF RECRUIT
Legal name – military records are surprisingly accurate.
Address – can be used to confirm links to relatives of different names through other documents or census records. This one turned out to be a heritage house owned by a millionaire.
Birthdate and birthplace – used to confirm identity. Lloyd’s birth was not legally registered, so this is the only record of birth.
Next of kin – confirms family link.
Signature – useful for comparisons between documents.
Physical description – if your great-grandfather had a tattoo or odd birthmark, wouldn’t you want to know what it was?
© The Vancouver Sun 2008