Pension records

Sometimes pension records have valuable information for genealogy research. They can include where a person worked, what they did and where they lived later in life.

Before you start

Gather information such as:

name
approximate year of birth
place of residence
occupation

If you don’t know your ancestor’s occupation, here are some sources than can help.

Places to look

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) holds the records below:

Federal government records

There are some documents relating to military and civilian pensions in various federal government records. You can search for possible references in Collection search.

In the box called All these words, enter a surname and keywords like :
- pension
- allowance
- superannuation
- annuity
- application

For more modern pensions, try Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). ESDC has records from 1980 onwards of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS) and Quebec Pension Plan (QPP). Records before 1980 were not kept.

Submit an Access to Information and Privacy request to ESDC

You can find some files relating to military pensions in these fonds:

Department of Militia and Defence (Record Group 9)
Department of Veterans Affairs (Record Group 38)
Department of National Defence (Record Group 24)

For those searches, use RG9, RG38 or RG24 as a keyword in your search.

In the past, some pensions for military veterans and civilian government employees were granted by an Order-in-Council (OIC). Those government documents are explained in our Orders in Council help page.

To find out if there is an OIC for your ancestor, enter a surname and the word pension in the database’s keyword box. You can also try the keywords; allowance, gratuity and superannuation.

Here are two examples to show the range of documents:

Military records

You can also search these collections:

War of 1812 database — pensions and gratuities granted to veterans
British military and naval records (Record Group 8, C series) — some references to pensions for Canadian militiamen and British soldiers are found in this series, which includes a digitized card index

General tips about military pensions

Not every veteran received a pension, especially in the colonial period.

Pensions were usually only granted to career officers.
For the lower ranks, a pension was usually granted only for severe disability.

Discharged British soldiers who settled in Canada may have received a pension for long service or disability.

Access the records

Digitized records

If you find a record of interest, there may be a digital image. Some of these are available through Collection Search. Others, particularly digitized microforms, are available through Héritage.

Non-digitized records

For 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.

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