Do you have Pre-Loyalist or Loyalist ancestors who settled in Canada? Or maybe you have other ancestors in the family tree not in either of those groups, but who lived in Canada for some time period after the Revolutionary War.

My family tree includes both pre-Loyalists, who were drawn to what was then called Nova Scotia in the 1760s by the offer of cheaper land and a half dozen Loyalists who felt strongly enough about their political beliefs to remain loyal to the King that they gave up everything and sailed to the newly established province of New Brunswick in the 1783 fleets from New York.

I have researched all those family lines, which begin in the American colonies, continue on in Canada, and then for many descendants of my direct line ancestors, return once again to life in the United States from the 1830s through the 1850s.

I’ve also done “one ancestor” studies in which I’ve identified as many descendants as possible, including all the collateral lines, right down to modern days.

What resources do I use? I’m not one of those who believe everything in genealogy should be free, but I do have a limited budget and don’t want to pay one website for the same information that is available for free on another.

That’s where Library and Archives Canada comes in.

Several years ago, Library and Archives Canada launched a new, updated, redesigned website. Although it was functional, some collections, like the Canadian censuses, were slowly migrated to the new website.

If you’ve used LAC, as it is known, in the past, but not since the update, or are a new user, I’d like to share what is on offer for genealogists.

Scroll down the home page (choose English in the top right corner) to the most requested box:

From the highlighted choices, I don’t even have to mention my favorite databases, but they are Census Records and Genealogy and Family History, where we will begin.

Depending on the time period and how long your ancestors lived in Canada, each of the above categories might be very helpful. This post will focus only on the Census Records.

Notice that while censuses seem to be available as early as 1825 all the way up to 1931, in reality, many of the earliest censuses didn’t survive or, if they did, are like the pre-1850 U.s. federal censuses that only provided the head of household.

From 1851 onward, most censuses survived and can be accessed on the LAC website. The search options on the redesigned website look very different from the choices on the old site.

Although it is possible to search more than one census now, I recommend searching one year at a time. That’s because there are many varied surname spellings from year to year and the search engines on LAC don’t seem to be great at picking up the variations. Your research will be much easier to manage going through the census options year by year.

Next, you can choose the surname or person:

I’ve already mentioned that surname spellings can vary a lot and the results often don’t reflect all those alternate possibilities. Also, I’ve learned from experience that I usually don’t even fill in the age or year of birth for the same reason. The new website search engine is an improvement over the old one, but I only add in the age as a last resort. I will admit, though, that I’ve never had to look for John Smith and my family members were small farmers or fisherman. If I had to find John Smith or Samuel Jones, I’d use the age and birth year more often. I’d recommend trying out the options yourself to see how well they work for you.

Lastly, searches can be narrowed to the province:

Advanced options allow adding town, county/district. An 1851 search for David Astle brought up one hit in Blackville, Northumberland County, New Brunswick, which is one of the small towns where my family lived.

Here is where I see the best of the improvements in the census record collections.

In the past, when the image was opened, there was no way to scroll to the page before or after. It was necessary to guess the name of a family member not listed on that page and to return to a new search, hoping to find someone with the same surname on an earlier or later page.

Now, there is the image in the center of the page, with the filmstrip below, which allows the user to move forward/backward. There is also an icon to print, download and to enlarge to full screen.

One negative that I’ve found is that some of the original census images were not filmed with the best clarity. (Very true for some U.S. censuses, too!) When the new LAC website launched, it simply moved the original images to the new website.

As you can see, the entry for David Astle can be read, but it makes my eyes water!

All in all, though, the new website search options are a welcome upgrade and, the best thing of all, is that Library and Archives Canada is freely accessible from home!

There is no need for any expensive international subscriptions on the big websites.

By the way, each Canadian province has it’s own provincial archive. One of my favorite websites of all time is the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (PANB), which is absolutely fabulous in the amount of digitized records that are online.

So, before you spend a lot of money on an international subscription, if you are researching Canada, check out Library and Archives Canada for all it has to offer online. Then, check out your provincial archives of interest, too!