Canada Census 1871

Each result in this collection will provide you with a transcript and image of the original census form. From the transcripts, you may learn the following details:

• First name(s)
• Last name
• Sex
• Age
• Birth year
• Birth place
• Origin
• Marital status
• Religion
• Family number
• Subdistrict
• District
• Province

Images, hosted at the Library and Archives Canada, will often be able to provide additional details. Since census enumerators often used abbreviations, you may find the following useful.

Religion

• Bible Christian (B.C.)
• Church of England (C. (of) E.)
• Church of Scotland (C. (of) S.)
• Episcopal Methodist Church (E.M.C.)
• Free Church—Presbyterian (F.C.)
• Methodist Episcopal Church (M.E.C.)
• Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces (P.C.L.P.)
• Presbyterian Free Church (P.F.C.)
• Roman Catholic (R.C.)
• Reformed Presbyterian (R.P.)
• United Presbyterian (U.P.)
• Wesleyan Methodist (W.M.)

Additional shorthand

• Where a downward stroke (|) or a ‘1’ was recorded where the answer was ‘yes’ or ‘one’.
• Where a dash (-) was recorded or a field left blank where the answer was ‘no’ or ‘zero’.

See the following sections to learn more about the 1871 census and deciphering the images.

The 1871 census began on 2 April 1871. The process of collecting population data for this census included the assignment of 2,789 enumerators to designated areas. For this purpose, Canada was divided into 206 census districts and 1,701 sub-districts.

In total, enumerators gathered information on 3,485,761 individuals in Canada:

• New Brunswick (285,594)
• Nova Scotia (387,800)
• Ontario (1,620,851)
• Quebec (1,191,516)

In 1967, the census returns were microfilmed, with a re-filming done in 1975. The images provided by the Library and Archives Canada were made by scanning these microfilms. As such, where the microfilm is unreadable, so is the provided image.

The column headings for schedule one, nominal return of the living, are as follows:

Numbered in the order of visitation by the enumerator

• Column 1 – A count of the vessels
• Column 2 – A count of the shanties
• Column 3 – A count of the houses in construction
• Column 4 – A count of the house uninhabited
• Column 5 – A count of the houses inhabited
• Column 6 – A count of the family or household

Personal details

• Column 7 – Names (last name, first name)
• Column 8 – Sex
• Column 9 – Age at last birthday (for those under one year of age, fractions were used, such as 4/12 for four months)
• Column 10 – Born within last twelve months (month of birth for infants whose names were entered in column 7 and who were still alive)
• Column 11 – Country or province of birth
• Column 12 – Religion
• Column 13 – Origin
• Column 14 – Profession, occupation, or trade (sons following their fathers in occupation/profession, and where associated with them, the same description was included; for women, unless they had a definite occupation outside their household, the column was marked with a dash)
• Column 15 – Married or widowed
• Column 16 – Married within the last twelve months (the month of marriage was recorded under the husband’s name with ditto marks (‘’) used for the wife)

Instruction

• Column 17 – Going to school
• Column 18 – Over 20 years of age and unable to read
• Column 19 – Over 20 years of age and unable to write

Infirmities -- the infirmity would have needed to reach the stage of incapacity to be noted

• Column 20 – Deaf and dumb
• Column 21 – Blind

• Column 22 – Unsound mind

• Column 23 – Dates of operations and remarks (comments were rare and used only for very special cases; this is where the enumerator entered the day’s date)

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, sailed for Canada from his home country of Scotland the year prior to this census being taken. In 1871, he is recorded as living in Ontario with his parents, Alexander and Eliza, and his widowed sister-in-law, Caroline Ottaway. Both Bell and his father are listed as lecturers as their occupations.

John Ostell

John Ostell was an architect; his notable works include Montreal’s original Custom House and the McGill University Arts Building. From his census entry, we see that Ostell was born in England and married to Eleonore, who was, in fact, a member of a prominent French Catholic family in Montreal.

• If your searches are returning too many results, try including another name in your search by using the Other household member search field. If you know another person that would have been living with your relative at the time of the census, searching by your ancestor’s name with this additional household member’s name will help to greatly narrow your search results.

• For images that are difficult to decipher, refer to the breakdown of column headers on the search screen to assist you.

• If the image continues to prove difficult to read, try downloading the image and opening it an image editing program on your computer. Increase the contrast and experiment with various settings to improve legibility.

• Did your ancestors travel to Canada from the United Kingdom? Did they leave Canada for the United States? If so, be sure to check out our census records for the United States and the United Kingdom.