Press F1 for context specific help.
Click on this button to perform the query. You may also perform the query pressing the enter key while in any text input field, or by the key combination Alt-Q.
Click on this button to display a district level report of the progress of the transcription effort for the 1901 census. You may also request this by the key combination Alt-C.
The Census of 1901 covered the Dominion of Canada, which was divided into seven provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia, as well as the North-West Territories. If you wish to limit the search to a specific province the choice is made using the selection list.
At present the only data entered is for part of Ontario.
The country was divided into Census Districts which corresponded approximately to electoral districts or ridings. Although some of these Districts have the same name as Counties, they do not generally have the same boundaries as the Counties with the same name.
Initially this selection list includes all Districts in the country. If a Province is selected then the District selection list is populated with an alphabetical list of the census Districts in that Province.
The Count field permits specifying how many records are to be displayed at at a time. The default is 20 records.
Each census District, generally the same as a County, was divided into census Sub-Districts, each conforming generally to a City Ward, Town, or Township. The selection list of sub-districts is populated when you select a District.
Larger census sub-districts were further divided into enumeration divisions or wards to try and balance out the workload for the enumerators. The selection list of divisions is populated when you select a sub-district.
Each page of the population census contained room for 50 individuals. It is anticipated that the user will choose to search an individual page only for the situation when the entire page, all 50 individuals, are the desired target set. Therefore selecting a specific page within a specific enumeration division ignores the Count field so that all rows of the page are displayed and changes the default sort order to display the records in the order they appear in the original.
This field is used to specify text which is matched against the given names of individuals in the database. This search is done as a case-insensitive pattern match, not a simple comparison.
Specifying simple text, comprising letters and spaces, matches against any names containing that text. "John" or "john" or "JOHN" will match "Johnathan" and "William John" as well as the simple "John".
The text may be a regular expression. There are too many options to enumerate here, but a few examples include:
- If you want to match just the name "John", excluding names that include "John" as part of them, enter "^John$".
- Enumerators often use unusual spellings of names. For example if you to match names including both "Henry" and "Henery", enter "Hen.*ry".
This field is used to specify text to look for in the surname of individuals. If the value contains only letters and spaces then only names that match exactly (except for case) are found. Otherwise this uses the same pattern matching as described for Given Names. For example to match surnames starting with "McL..." and ending with "...n", such as "McLean", "McLain", "McLennan", or "McLellan" you could specify "^McL.*n$".
The meaning of this field changes if the Soundex option is selected.
The Soundex code has been used for decades to attempt to match names that sound similar. For example it is used by police forces to perform a rough match for the names of drivers. It is a problematic tool, as it is based upon the phonetics of British surnames. If you select this option along with a complete surname, not a pattern match, in the Surname field, then the search is made for surnames that "sound like" the given surname. For example specifying Soundex together with "McLean" will match all of the surnames in the pattern match example under "Surname", but many other names as well, such "McCallum", "McAllan", "McClain", and "McWilliams".
Select this option if you only want to look for male or female individuals.
Select this option if you wish to restrict the search based upon the marital status of the individuals.
This option is used to search for individuals based upon their listed occupations. This is again a pattern match. For example searching for "Labo[u]{0,1}rer" will match any occupation that contains either "Laborer" or "Labourer", including "Farm Labourer" and "R'y Laborer".
This option is used to search for individuals based upon where they were born. This is a pattern match. For example searching for "Canada" will also match "Canada East", "Canada West", "Lower Canada", and "Upper Canada".
This option is used to search for individuals based upon their religious affiliation. This is a pattern match. For example searching for "Meth" will match any religion containing that string, including "Wesleyan Methodist", "C. Meth.", "New Connexion Methodist", and "Methodist Episcopal".
The Nationality field is used to search for individuals based upon their citizenship at the time of the census. Citizenship is generally acquired by birth in a country or by formal naturalization. Technically there was no such thing as "Canadian" citizenship until 1948, however all British Subjects, that is individuals born anywhere in the British Empire, were to be listed as "Canadian" on this form. Contrast the use of "American" in this field with the prohibition on this term in the Origin column.
The Origin field is used to search for individuals with a particular ethnic origin. Note that by the instructions to the enumerators the term "Canadian" only applied to Canadiens-françaises, and the term "American" was not to be used, regardless of how many generations the individual's family had been living in America.
The Birth Year and Range fields are used to search for individuals based upon their approximate birth year calculated from their age at the time of the census in spring 1901.
The Range field specifies the number of years on either side of the Birth Year that will match.