Free Access to Canadian Vital Records Until Feb. 20th

[polly7]

http://www.ancestry.ca/whatsyourstory?o_iid=50313&o_lid=50313&o_sch=Web+Property

[kdmorris]

1. Thanks, Polly! n/t

[polly7]

2. you're welcome!

[polly7]

3. For anyone who has ancestors who spent time in Canada,

http://automatedgenealogy.com/ - 'Automated Genealogy' is a great site. Many of us all across the world spent hundreds / thousands of hours helping transcribe various indexes and linking people from those with military records, etc. It's all completely free.

[kdmorris]

4. Mine were there before the American Revolution

It appears that my 5th great grandfather, Walter Samuel Watrous, was born in Horton, Kings, Nova Scotia in 1765. It appears that they all left Canada when the American Revolution started and went back to NY.

Walter Samuel's father, Walter, appears on the list of New England Planters in 1759.

[polly7]

5. That's early. Have you been able to find much information on them here?

My earliest ancestors I can track coming to Canada arrived right after the Irish Rebellion. Fortunately, they were prolific letter-writers so I've been quite lucky being able to fit the pieces together. I've tried to get information on them while in Ireland, but a lot of the records were burnt.

[kdmorris]

6. It hasn't been easy

But there are tax records and such, so I know when he was living there. I haven't been able to find a birth record on Walter Samuel yet. One nice thing about the New England Planters is that there is a LOT of information on them, so I can kind of imagine what their life was like.

[pipi_k]

7. Mine too...

I'm descended from a Pierre Roussel, born in Canada in 1710.

I'm also descendant of Andre Auclair, who died in Canada in 1699.

One of the more interesting stories of an ancestor is the one involving Sarah Allen, who, at the age of 12, was captured by Mohawks at the battle of Deerfield, MA, marched north to Canada, and sold to a Montreal merchant. She was baptized with a French name and worked as a domestic for a few years, after which she married a Frenchman and had 13 children.

I love this stuff

[polly7]

8. Just to keep Canadian sources on one thread,

http://ourroots.ca/ is a fantastic site for finding local and regional history books that have been scanned and made available free of charge.