Canada Land and Property: Difference between revisions

''See also [[Provincial Land records]]' and [[Canada Land Records]].''

Use land records to learn where ancestors lived and when they lived there. Land records may give the:  

*Names of spouse, children, other heirs, relatives, and neighbors.  

*Place where a person lived previously.  

*Occupation.  

*Military service.

Naturalization information and other clues for further research.  

Many people in [[Canada|Canada]] owned land, and a very high percentage of the population is named in land records. The availability of land attracted many immigrants to Canada and encouraged westward expansion. Land ownership was generally recorded in an area as soon as settlers began to arrive. These were often the first records available in an area. Although they may not be as easy to use, land records may give pedigree information for earlier times when other records were not kept.  

In eastern Canada, most land records begin in the late 1700s. They include land petitions, fiats and warrants, land grants and patents, and deeds. The federal homestead era in the Prairie Provinces lasted almost 60 years (1872 to 1930). Homestead record files cover those years.  

Special categories of land and property records applied to the American Loyalists, in Canada called United Empire Loyalists. Many Loyalists and their sons and daughters applied for land grants in present eastern Canada as compensation for war losses. Loyalists and their children were entitled to land grants without payment of fees. If a man could not prove service in a Loyalist corps, he or his children would have trouble claiming a Loyalist free land grant. Other loss claims were also presented.  

Some Loyalist records are in the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under LAND AND PROPERTY headings. Others are in the Subject section under AMERICAN LOYALISTS and UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS. For more information on Loyalists, See the "[[Canada Military Records|Military Records]]" section of this outline.  

During the Loyalist and immediate post-Loyalist eras, orders-in-council often included the name of the Loyalist father for whose service sons and daughters were claiming free grants. Other than petitions and orders-in-council, most land-grant documents have little or no family information. However, land records involved in court disputes and similar proceedings often contain a wealth of family information. See Ontario Research Outline (31089) for information about the "Township Papers" and "Heir and Devisee Commission" records that can fall into this category.  

=== Homestead Records of Western Canada ===

Homesteading practices in Canada were patterned after those in the western United States. Homesteading began in Canada in 1872, about ten years after it began in the United States. Canadian federal homesteading ended in 1930, when the Prairie Provinces: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta assumed control of the Crown lands within their borders.  

The Canadian parliament passed the Dominion Lands Act in 1872 to promote settlement and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Canadian West. Under that act, the homesteader paid only ten dollars for 160 acres, but was required to build a home and cultivate a certain number of acres within three years.  

The federal government made a homestead record file for each person who applied for a homestead. This includes a description of the land filed for, the date of filing, and correspondence about the property. There may also be copies of naturalization papers or other kinds of immigration information. Names of other family members are sometimes included.  

In 1930 the national government returned control of the homesteading process to the individual provinces. The provincial archives of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan each have the homestead application files and indexes for their province. The indexes list the name of the homesteader, location of the homestead, and file number. For microfilms of indexes for Saskatchewan, see the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:  

SASKATCHEWAN - LAND AND PROPERTY  

''See also [[Canada Land Records]], an article about Canadian homesteading.''  

Diagrams of typical arrangements of farm lots in townships in the various provinces are in Eric Jonasson’s The Canadian Genealogical Handbook (see the "For Further Reading" section of this outline.)  

=== Land Indexes ===

Petitions usually have good indexes or are filed alphabetically. Other land records for eastern Canada are often not indexed by surname but are arranged by land parcels within townships. You may have to trace a piece of property through time in order to use those land records, rather than try to trace the family name through indexes.  

Therefore, you must know the name of the township where your ancestor lived and the number of the lot he lived on. This information is in the agricultural schedules sometimes included with the 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1901 censuses. Illustrated historical atlases published about 1878 for some counties include maps showing names of landowners. See the "[[Canada Maps|Maps]]" section of this outline.  

If you know the name of the eastern Canada locality where your ancestor was settled in 1871, Lovell’s Dominion Directory for 1871 shows the names of the townships and counties where the towns and villages were located. There are indexes to portions of Lovell’s directory (see "[[Canada Directories|Directories]]").