General census guide

Find instructions on using census records to do genealogical research. These records contain detailed information about individuals and their families, such as:

• marital status
• occupation
• residence
• gender
• ethnicity

The specific questions asked on the census varied from year to year. The records vary in levels of completeness. Some information might be missing.

By law, the census returns are transferred to LAC and opened for public use after 92 years.

On this page

• Before you start
• Places to look
• Terminology and abbreviations
• Search tips
• Access the records
• Related resources

Before you start

Gather information such as:

• name(s)
• approximate year of birth
• country of birth
• approximate year of arrival
• place of residence in Canada

Places to look

Terminology and abbreviations

Terminology

Aggregate returns

A type of census that only includes the number of individuals, rather than listing their names.

Agricultural returns

Agricultural returns provide information such as acreage, livestock and agricultural products. Only some names on the Canada West agricultural pages are indexed in this database. More will be added in the future.

Enumerators and enumeration

Enumerators were the individuals who collected information for the census. This collection of information is known as enumeration.

Military census

A census taken of military settlements that included discharged soldiers and civilian settlers. These can be aggregate or nominal.

Nominal census

A type of census that includes names of individuals.

Originals

An original archival document

Return

Another term for a census record or a list of people.

Schedules

Copies of the specific census questionnaires. Censuses had several different questionnaires, and therefore several different schedules. Not all schedules have survived.

Transcripts

A handwritten or typed copy of original records

Abbreviations

You will see many abbreviations on census pages. Some pages are written in English and some are written in French. It is helpful to know what the abbreviations mean for both languages.

There are some abbreviations that were only used in one year. Those are explained on the individual census information pages.

Here are the most common ones found in most years.

Place of birth in Canada

Alb / Alta

Alberta

Assa

Assiniboia

BC

Bas-Canada (Lower Canada, Quebec)

BC

British Columbia

CB

Colombie-Britannique

CE

Canada East (Canada-Est, Quebec)

CW

Canada West (Canada-Ouest, Ontario)

HC

Haut-Canada (Upper Canada, Ontario)

IP

Île-du-Prince-Edouard

LC

Lower Canada (Bas-Canada, Quebec)

MD

Mackenzie District

M / Man

Manitoba

NB

New Brunswick

NB

in some older records, this means North Britain (Scotland)

NE

Nouvelle-Écosse

NO

Territoires du Nord-Ouest

NS

Nova Scotia

NW / NWT

Northwest Territories

O / Ont

Ontario

PEI

Prince Edward Island

Q

Quebec (Note that the Q sometimes looks like an L or an O)

Que

Quebec

Sask

Saskatchewan

UC

Upper Canada (Haut-Canada, Ontario)

YT / Yuk

Yukon Territory

U

Ungava

Marital status

S

single

C

célibataire (single)

M

married

W

Widow(ed)

Wr

Widower

V

veuf / veuve (widower / widow)

D

divorced

L.S.

legally separated

Religion

There are many religious denominations and abbreviations. For example, Anglican was often abbreviated as Ang., C of E (Church of England) or Eg. D’ang (Église d’ Angleterre). There are many genealogy websites that give information about religious denominations and abbreviations.

B.C.

Bible Christian

C. (of) E.

Church of England

C. (of) S.

Church of Scotland

E.M.C.

Episcopal Methodist Church

F.C.

Free Church – Presbyterian

M.E.C.

Methodist Episcopal Church

P.C.L.P.

Presbyterian-Canada and Lower Provinces

P.F.C.

Presbyterian Free Church

R.C.

Roman Catholic

R.P.

Reformed Presbyterian

U.P.

United Presbyterian

W.M.

Wesleyan Methodist

Other abbreviations

Dom

domestic

L

lodger

N / Na

naturalized

Al

alien, meaning not a British subject/Canadian citizen

Pa

papers: applied for citizenship but not yet received their naturalization papers

r

retired (in occupation column) or rural (in place column)

S2/6

Residential dwellings were described using letters and numbers such as “S2/6” for a stone house, two stories, six rooms or “W ½” for a wooden house, one story, two rooms.

M

Male

F

Female

O

Overseas

C

Training camps in Canada

E

Étranger / Overseas

Jan.

January

Feb.

February

Mar.

March

Apr.

April

Aug.

August

Sept.

September

Oct.

October

Nov.

November

Dec.

December

W

White, Caucasian

R

Red, Indigenous

B

Black, African

Y

Yellow, Asian

Fb

French breed

Eb

English breed

Sb

Scottish breed

Ib

Irish breed

Ob

other breed

B

Blanc, White, Caucasian

R

Rouge, Red, Indigenous

N

Noir, Black, African

J

Jaune, Yellow, Asian

m.f.

métis français, French breed

m.a.

métis anglais, English breed

m.e.

métis écossais, Scottish breed

m.i.

métis irlandais, Irish breed

a.r.

autre race/métissage, other breed

A

Acres

B wheat

Buckwheat

Bsh.

Bushels

Galls.

Gallons

Cwts./ Quint

Hundredweight

Lbs.

Pounds

Yds.

Yards

Dashes and other symbols

In some years, these were used:

• Items to be counted as one were indicated by either a downward stroke “|” or the figure "1."
• Items to be counted as zero were indicated by a dash “-“ or the space was left blank.
• A dash was written when NO was the answer or there was nothing to be recorded.
• The number “1” was written when YES was the answer.
• Quotation marks “ ” or the word “ditto” were used when the information in one line it the same as the line before.

Search tips

General

• The Census Search database is an index, meaning it shows information as it was recorded on the original census pages. For this reason, there are often variations in names and other details such as dates, places and ages.
• The quality of the scanned images depends on the quality of the microfilm.
• Start your search with a minimal amount of information (names) and then use the filters to narrow down the results. Sometimes if you put too much information, you won't get any results.

Databases are created by indexers who look at the census returns and try to interpret the information on each page. Mistakes can happen because of:

• poor handwriting in the original documents
• The standard use of cursive, which can be difficult to read
• poor quality of the digitized microfilm
• pages that are hard to read because of faded ink or very dark ink
• letters that look similar can cause confusion for indexers, such as u and n, o and a, L and S, etc.
• in some old handwriting styles, a double “s” resembled the letters fs or p
• confusion over how names were presented on a page, for example, a first name might be entered incorrectly in a database as the last name and vice versa

Census records relating to Indigenous peoples are sometimes kept in other archival collections, most notably RG 10.

Searching by name

You can search for an individual using only a last name or a first name in combination with some other search fields. When you are searching by name, keep the following in mind:

• Try the * wildcard, for example Fran* for Frank, Francis, François, Franz, Francisco. The wildcard can be used at the beginning, end or in the middle of a name.
• Some people went by their middle name or used a nickname, such as Lizzie for Elizabeth or Nellie for Helen.
• Some first names were recorded only by the initial or an abbreviation, such as T. or Thos. instead of Thomas. Sometimes only a title was used, such as Mrs., Mr., Dr., Rev., Widow.
• Some women were recorded by their husband’s name, for example, Mrs. Joe Chang. In Quebec, women were often recorded by maiden name instead of their married name.
• Spelling variations of names are common in old records. Also, many names were written phonetically, as they sounded to the person recording them. For example, Thibault, Thibeau and Tibo are just three of many variations of that name.
• Last names appear different ways depending on how they were recorded and how they were indexed. Example: McDonald, MacDonald, M’Donald, Mc Donald, Donald Mc
• Some immigrants anglicized their names. Boisvert may have evolved into Greenwood. Johan Kuch may have called himself John Cook. Even the enumerator may have created his own variations. For example, an English enumerator might have written John Baptist instead of Jean-Baptiste.

Searching by place

If you can’t locate an individual when searching by name or if you want to search a specific area, there are several approaches to take.

The first step is to try to locate where the individual you are searching for lived. You can do this several ways.

If the person you are looking for lived in a city

You can try searching the annual city directory for that year. City directories list adult residents alphabetically and indicate occupation and address. Some digitized city directories are found at LAC in Canadian Directories Collection.

• Find the person’s name in the alphabetical section to see their address.
• Next, check the street section of the directory to see the names of their neighbours.
• Now search for those names in the database.

If you know the name of a place, but not where it is located

Try our Post Offices and Postmasters database.

• Search by the place name. If there was a post office there, it will indicate the electoral district and sometimes other location details. For example, the entry for Archville indicates that it was part of Nepean (Township) in Carleton District. So in this case, you would try searching for Nepean in the census database.

If you know where the place was located (after 1891)

You can try to search federal electoral districts maps. Not only were federal electoral districts redrawn after each census (after 1891), but the new electoral districts were used to draw the census districts for the next census.

• Use the following electoral atlases to locate a place, and then search for that particular district in the census. Keep in mind that between the time the electoral districts were redrawn, there may have been minor changes to some boundaries before the next census was taken.
  • Electoral Atlas of the Dominion of Canada, 1895
  • Electoral atlas of the Dominion of Canada: as divided for the tenth general election held in the year 1904
  • Electoral atlas of the Dominion of Canada, according to the Redistribution act of 1914 and the Amending act of 1915
  • Federal electoral district maps, 1924
  • Map of federal Electoral Districts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 1924

Advanced technique: Searching by district or sub-district

Census returns from 1825 onwards are organized by province or territory.

• Each province and territory is divided into districts, based on federal electoral districts, which usually correspond to counties and cities.
• Districts are divided into sub-districts, generally corresponding to townships, civil parishes and larger towns.
• Small towns and villages were usually enumerated within the surrounding township and not identified separately.

For some cities, some wards or suburban areas were enumerated in the surrounding county/district.

• Check the list of Districts and Sub-districts for that year to find the relevant numbers (information is available on the web pages for that specific census).
• In Census Search, click on Advanced Search in the top right corner.
• In the When section, select the specific census year
• In the Where section, click on more, then enter the District number and Sub-district number. In some census years, the Sub-district "number" is a letter.
• In Locate in the archives, enter 1 in Page number.
• From the results, click on any of the image thumbnails to view page 1. Note that some sub-districts have more than one part, so there may be more than one page 1
• To move to the next image, simply use the arrows in the viewer.

Please note that not every census has page numbers.

Access the records

In 1955, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics was authorized by the Public Records Committee to microfilm and destroy the original paper census returns from 1881 onwards. That is why only microfilm copies exist. The original paper copies that still exist for census before 1881 are fragile and not available for consultation. The digitized microfilms are available.

Digitized records

All of the Canadian census records from 1825 onwards can be searched using the Census Search.

If you need information for pension or legal reasons, see Accessing my census information from Statistics Canada.

Other census records, including those early census records and related documents are available through Collection Search or the Héritage website.

Records that are not digitized

For census records that are not digitized, you will need to see them in person. If you cannot visit us in person, you may want to order copies or hire a researcher. Please note that microfilm copies of the census are available for on site consultation up to 1916.

Related resources

• 1940 National Registration
  • The National Registration was a result of the National Resources Mobilization Act, 1940, which enabled the government to identify military and labour resources that could be mobilized for the war effort. It is an alternative to census records that are still restricted by privacy laws.
• First Nations genealogy
• Census related posts on LAC Blog

Our census returns are also indexed on other genealogy websites.