Resources

1931 Canada Census

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Excerpt from 1931 Canada Census – Schedule for Population – North Grey, Derby, Ontario

The event all genealogists in Canada have been waiting for has arrived: Library and Archives Canada released its digitization of 234,678 images of the 1931 Canada Census on June 1, 2023. The collection is open for browsing by location – province, district and sub-district. (1)   Eight days later, Ancestry, using its Handwriting Recognition software,  delivered  a searchable indexed database to subscribers. Family Search will soon follow with its index. Images may also be browsed by province and district at FindMyPast.

The enumerators recorded details on more than 10.3 million people. Canada’s population after the First World War had grown 18% from the 8.7 million of 1921. Many immigrants were from Europe, attracted to agriculture in the Prairie provinces. At the same time and especially in Ontario the urban population surpassed the rural as men and women left farms to work in factories and offices. Trouble appeared in the late 1920s with crop failures in the west and the stock market crash of 1929 in the east. By 1931 the Great Depression had taken hold with rising unemployment, homelessness and hunger. By 1933 unemployment was 33%. During this time, the Prairies were beset by drought and insects  to bring on the Dirty Thirties. Not all were devastated: property owners and people with jobs fared much better. These outcomes are captured in the data on house values, income, and employment. (2)

The Census provides a snapshot of how families were managing across the nation. Questions concerned housing, income, employment, ethnicity, nationality, education – and, very interestingly, possession of a radio.    

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New Resource: Bruce County Historical Society Yearbooks

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Kudos to the Bruce County Museum and the Bruce County Historical Society for digitizing the yearbooks of the Society for 1967 to 2010.

Each yearbook contained a variety of historical stories about the people, places and events in Bruce County history. These fascinating stories of our past are now more available to people across the globe who are interested in Bruce County’s past.

https://www.shorelinebeacon.com/news/local-news/bruce-county-historical-society-yearbooks-now-online

Go to Bruce County Historical Newspapers at https://newspapers.brucemuseum.ca/. The yearbook is the second item on the list. Browse the list by year or enter a keyword search. Of course, my search was for fleming – returned eight results of which two were related to this Fleming family. The 2006 issue referred to an article written by Roy Fleming, and the 1971 mentioned Christy Morrison as a survivor of the loss of the Asia in Georgian Bay. Results were more plentiful for the term Oliphant.

Ontario Township Papers ca 1783-1870

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Announcements of newly digitized archival materials are always a pleasant surprise. In November 2020 genealogy blogs active in Ontario publicized that Family Search had loaded the Township Papers  ca 1783-1870 for the Province of Ontario held  on reels of  microfilm at the Archives of Ontario. These reels consist of a mélange of land-related documents not filed elsewhere. Archives of Ontario described  them as follows:

… copies of orders-in-council; copies of location certificates and location tickets; copies of assignments; certificates verifying the completion of settlement duties; copies of receipt; copies of descriptions; and copies of patents; and copies of incoming correspondence.

Township Papers – Archives of Ontario

My objective was to see what can be found about the Fleming families who pioneered in Derby Township, Grey County in the 1850s.

The papers are organized alphabetically by township.  Access at Family Search is through these two links.

We begin with Derby Township, identified on two lines on the image below. Click on the camera icon to view a gallery of images for the letters of that township organized by concession and lot.

UPDATE 12 April 2021 – I explored the Derby Township papers in late March. On preparing this blog post I found that townships from D to Haldimand had been dropped. This is probably a temporary glitch. Hopefully, your interest will be in one of the other townships.

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Researching Land Records in Ontario

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Land records have been an important resource in documenting the history of the Fleming families in Derby Township, Grey County. The most useful record has been the “abstract index to deeds” adopted in the land record offices in 1865. The abstract is a summary of the transaction showing dates, instrument number, transaction type, lot and concession, acres, grantor and grantee, dollar amount. Transaction codes indicate “bargain and sale,” mortgage received, discharge of mortgage, release, grant, and other events. In a nutshell it shows the history of the changes in ownership and financing arrangements, and sometimes the disposal of an estate. For further detail, it was sometimes necessary to find the memorialization of the deed or transfer by the instrument number in the copybook for the township or locate the original document.

Previously, researchers had to go to the county land registry office or Archives of Ontario. Today the Ontario Land Registry Access (OnLand) website provides online access to digital images of the index pages. This posting is a short guide for searching that service.

Land records are organized by concession and lot. In our case, we knew the concession and lot numbers of the properties Alexander Fleming bought in 1847 and 1858. Another source for this information are farmers’ directories – especially the Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Grey  1865-6 (Toronto: W W Smith, 1865)

In this example, we are looking for the history of “Forest Lawn” on the north half of Lot 9 Concession 6. James Fleming obtained the lot from his father in 1853 and during his lifetime developed it into an estate of orchards and gardens. Continue reading →

New York Heritage Digital Collection

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Photograph of the Pan Am Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo illuminated at night with latest technology for electrical wiring.
Panoramic View of the Pan-Am Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo. NY. Source Wikimedia  (1)

Several members of the Fleming family moved to cities in New York State in the late 1800s. Researching their movements and lives has led us to the trove of the New York Heritage digital collections (https://nyheritage.org/) created by eight members of the Empire State Library Network.

Two cousins – Jean Agnew, daughter of Jessie (Fleming) Agnew, and Margaret Fleming, daughter of James Fleming –  were among the first to enter new nursing programs being started in New York State in the 1880s.

Jean Agnew arrived in Rochester NY to begin her training at the Rochester City General Hospital around 1887. The Rochester City Hospital School of Nursing, the third nursing school in New York State, opened its doors in 1880. Continue reading →