Index to the 1871 census of Ontario

Lela H. Booth, Bruce S. Elliott

The original nominal return of the various nineteenth-century censuses are among the most commonly used and most useful of genealogical sources, providing the name, age, birthplace, ethnic origin, and occupation of every resident at a point in time, in this instance 2 April 1871. It is the only source that comes close to being a comprehensive listing of the population. Why 1871? There are a number of reasons why we selected this year. A major consideration was the fact the 1871 census returns appear to be the most complete and probably the most legible of the Canadian censuses. The returns are generally easier to read than the earlier ones, and in many parts of the province the spelling and handwriting in 1881 were far worse than they had been ten years earlier. Indexing the 1871 returns presented less threat of duplication than would have been the case had another year been selected;...

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