A new online source of genealogical information about immigrants to Canada from the 1930s to the 1950s
From Remembering Our Yesterdays, a blog at Inside Toronto
While working at Libraries and Archives Canada several years ago, Joanna Crandell discovered that hundreds of mysterious “order-in-council” lists related to immigrants appeared in the index under the subject heading “Immigration.”
Crandell examined the immigrant-related orders-in-council and “was overwhelmed at the amount of genealogical information they contained.” As she explained at a presentation at the Ontario Genealogical Society conference in June (2016), Crandell and her sister worked for three years to photograph and index them from 1930 to 1960.
Then they uploaded the index to a website to give the public access to these documents and the very valuable genealogical information they contain. The index contains the names of upwards of 30,000 immigrants and 15,000 Canadians who sponsored them.
“Although the lists start in 1930, the information about the sponsors can give details of immigrants who arrived in Canada much earlier,” Crandell said. “In some cases the sponsors are an elderly couple who have been in Canada for many years and are bringing in a relative to help with the family farm or business.”
Jews comprise the largest single ethnic group in the files, followed by almost 4,000 Chinese immigrants who start to appear on the lists in 1948. There are also Ukrainians, various Europeans, and many other nationalities. Brits, Scots and residents of other Commonwealth countries are not in the lists, however, as they were freely admitted into Canada.
The orders-in-council lists are a newly available and potentially valuable source of information on immigrants to Canada. The lists were previously on the website orderincouncillists.com and available for a fee. They have now been acquired by Ancestry and are available to Ancestry members.
You must search for this particular database in the Ancestry card catalogue. The heading is: Canada, Immigrants Approved in Orders in Council, 1929-1960. ♦
