Canadian Genealogy Links and Resources

Canadian Genealogy Links and Resources

• National Archives of Canada Learn how to start your search for your relatives, and where to find records.
• Canadian Archival Resources A comprehensive list of links to Canadian archives and associated resources on the Internet. (bilingual)
• ArchiviaNet National Archives of Canada's online research tool.
• Canadian Genealogy Center Provides electronic access to genealogical resources in Canada.
• Civil Registration birth, marriage and death records by province.
• National Library of Canada Has a wealth of published materials of interest to genealogists researching their Canadian ancestors.
• Canadian Births, Deaths & Marriage Exchange A free resource for sharing information about details contained on certificates registered in Canada.
• Family Search Internet Genealogy Service - While not specifically Canadian, Family Search is the largest surname database in the world.
• The inGeneas Database Contains Canadian passenger and immigration records from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.
• The Olive Tree Genealogy Contains a lot of searchable Canadian indexes. This is one of the best genealogy sites on the web.
• Bob's Your Uncle Eh, A search engine that provides detailed access to Canadian genealogical information on the World Wide Web.
• Geographical Names A searchable database of over 350,000 geographical names in Canada. (bilingual)
• Canadian County Atlas Digital Program A searchable database of the property owners names which appear on the township maps in the county atlases.
• Quebec Family History Society
• Ontario Genealogical Society encourages, brings together and assists all those interested in the pursuit of family history. 
• Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid  A database of over 2 Million interments in Ontario.
• Canada Gen Web Project Committed to the collection and distribution of Canadian genealogical data on the web. Contains links to provincial GenWeb Projects.
• Canada Genealogy Forum GenForum message board for Canada. Search by surname or post a message.
• CyndiList Large list of Canadian genealogy links and resources.
• Northeastern Ontario Gravemarkers Gallery  Excellent site which contains photographs of all gravestones in all cemeteries in Nipissing and Parry Sound Districts in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. The site is searchable by surname.
• Genealogy Helplist Canada A list of volunteers willing to lookup specific information related to genealogy in Canada using reference materials at institutions near them.
• Books We Own Library A list of resources owned/accessed by volunteers who are willing to look up genealogical information and e-mail or snail mail it to others who request it.

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Canadian History and Heritage

• Culture.ca Your historical and cultural journey starts here!
• Early Canadiana Online A full text online collection of more than 3,000 books and pamphlets documenting Canadian history from the first European contact to the late 19th century. The collection is particularly strong in literature, women's history, native studies, travel and exploration, and the history of French Canada. (bilingual)
• Simcoe County Historical Association a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to the preservation, appreciation, and dissemination of the history and heritage of Simcoe County.
• The Canadian Aviation Historical Society The oldest and largest organization dedicated to the celebration and documentation of Canada's flying heritage.
• Canadian Railroad Historical Association A volunteer non-profit charitable organization. Its aims are the preservation and dissemination of information concerning railway heritage in Canada as well as the acquisition of artifacts and archival material which depict the historical or technological development of Canada's railways.
• Mennonite Historical Society of Canada Contains genealogical resources of interest to Canadian Mennonites.
• The Children of Fort Langley Hudson's Bay Company fur fort located in the Columbia District on Fraser's River and between 1827 and 1895, approximately 108 men lived and worked at the three fort sites, in what is now British Columbia, Canada. The Children of Fort Langley are the descendants of these men and their wives.
• Hudson's Bay Company Archives Apart of the Archives of Manitoba, the HBCA offers a wealth of information on the human and natural history of western and northern Canada.
• CBC Archives Relive Canadian history through CBC Radion and Television.

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Canada's Information and Directories

• Alcanseek.com An Alaskan and Canadian travel and tourism directory.
• Canadianeh.com An all canadian directory of canadian web sites.
• CanTrek.ca Canadian directory only lists sites with 100% Canadian content.
• Altavista.ca Searchable directory of Canadian sites.
• Made In PEI Your search is over! Searchable Prince Edward Island business directory.
• Nova Scotia On-Line Nova Scotia's travel, tourism and business directory.
• Superpages.ca - Canadian phone book/directory. Includes, Business Search, People Search, Maps, Driving directions, City pages and Reverse Lookups.
• InfoSpace Canada Find phone numbers and addresses of Canadian residents.
• Canada 411 Canadian telephone directory maintained by Sympatico.ca

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Canadian Adoption Information

• Canadian Adoptee Registry A national database of, birth mothers/fathers, siblings, relatives and fostered children, who are searching for their families.
• Parent Finders of Canada Provides direction where to obtain background information, search and support advice, reunion register database, and reunion support services.
• Parent Finders Montreal A non-profit organization whose aim is to support and reunite Adoptees, Birthparents, and Siblings searching for each other.
• Adoption Council of Canada Based in Ottawa, the ACC raises public awareness of adoption, promotes placement of waiting children and stresses the importance of post-adoption services.
• Adoption Council of Ontario A registered charity directed toward advocating for, and enhancing the lives of, adoptees and all persons concerned with adoption.
• Our Darlings Registry Prince Edward Islands free online adoptee and birth parent search registry.
• Parent Finders New Brunswick Adoptees and Birthparent Search Registry.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Largest genealogical library in the world. It is not a Canadian organization, but they do maintain many Family History Centers in Canada.

• Find the Canadian Family History Center nearest you.
• LDS Family History Resources
• LDS Family Search (Internet Genealogy Service)

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Mailing Lists

• Rootsweb Lists A complete list of Genealogy mailing lists in Canada. You do not even have to subscribe to the mailing lists, the archives are available on line for viewing.

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Message Boards

• GenForm Genealogy.com's searchable genealogy forum for Canadian research.
• The Genealogy Register: Canada Message Board.

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Newsgroups

• Usenet - soc.genealogy.surnames.canada

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Free Genealogy Software

There is no need to buy a software program for your research. All of the software you need is absolutely free. 

• Personal Ancestral File The most widely used genealogical management program is absolutely free. This is the program I use and recommend.
• Legacy Family Tree The "Standard Edition", is a full-featured professional genealogy program that helps you track, organize, print, and share your family history. Includes sourcing, reports, merging, To Do list, slide shows, multimedia, Web pages, spell checking, import and export and much more. And, it's free.
• WinGenealogic is a French genealogy software  It will enable you to manage all your data, to establish and publish your family trees.
• GED-GEN A very nice GEDCOM to HTML converter. This is the program I use to publish my own family tree. It has a lot of options which will allow you to easily integrate the output pages with the rest of your site. Also has a removal filter for living persons allowing you to protect the privacy of living individuals.
• GED2JS A MS-DOS based gedcom to html converter, written by Robin Handley. It runs in an MS-DOS/command prompt window under Microsoft Windows. Creates clean html pages displayed in Family group sheet and pedigree formats.
• Ged2www A free GEDCOM to HTML converter which produces very clean html code which can be customized to suit your site. Dates can be hidden for individuals that are (or may be) alive.
• GedPage A GEDCOM to HTML web page builder. The output is formatted as Family Group Sheets which are very easy to read, and familiar to genealogists. Gedpage has many options to give your pages a custom look, available for Windows, and Macintosh.
• GedReporter A free tool that allows you to generate custom reports on information in a genealogy database. It will also generate very nicely formatted html pages from a gedcom file for uploading to a website.
• Ged4web Another GEDCOM to HTML translator software for publishing your genealogy data on the world wide web.
• GedBrowser Free GEDCOM to HTML publishing tool. You can include photographs, video, and audio into your pedigree charts.
• GedView A Windows program to navigate through GEDCOM files. Note that this program only reads GEDCOM files. It does not edit them or create new ones.
• GEDClean Publishing information about living relatives on the web is simply not safe. This program removes the personal information about living individuals from your GEDCOM file before you convert it to HTML. The original 16-bit GEDClean is still available for download as freeware.
• Res Privata An easy to use software application for filtering private data from genealogy data files. Easily removes names and personal information of living persons.

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Free Web Space

Choose your web space provider carefully. Free web hosts come and go with alarming frequecy. Because of this I recommend using a free web host that has been around for awhile.

• Rootsweb Free Web Space Use the link "Request for Webspace". Banner or Pop-up ad on each page. Please note that rootsweb does not permit users to upload gedcom files.
• Geocities Free Web Hosting The most popular free web hosting service has a file upload manager but users are unable to upload files using ftp software. 15 mb of disk space. Banner or Pop-up ads on each page.
• Geocities Canada Free Web Hosting This version of Geocities free hosting will allow users to upload files using their favourite ftp software. 15 mb of disk space. Banner or Pop-up ads on each page.
• Tripod 20 Mb of free web space. Banner or Pop-up ad on each page. FTP uploads. MS FrontPage, CGI and Perl supported. Web-based builder and templates provided.
• Anglefire 20Mb. Choice of pop-up or on-page ads. FTP or Browser uploads. Templates and building tools provided.
• Freewebspace.net Large searchable directory and guide to finding a free personal webspace provider.

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Gedcom Database Hosting

IIf you have a gedcom file, you can post your research on the world wide web. These are also excellent resources for searching for surnames.  Please be careful about the information you submit to anyone. Use a gedcom cleaner to remove names and information for living persons before you submit your data.

• Dave Wilks' Free Gedcom Server A free gedcom server for those genealogy researchers who would like to publish their work on the Inernet. The server is banner ad supported. No special computer skills are required.
• WorldConnect Project RootsWeb's free gedcom hosting service. Upload your family tree to the world wide web.
• GenCircles - Post your gedcom files and easily find others who are researching the same ancestors.
• GeneaNet Post your family tree on line. An excellent searchable database of surnames.
• GedLink A large worldwide community of genealogists and people interested in their family history. easily and securely exchange information and branches of family trees.

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Genealogy Guides and Tutorials For Beginners

There are many sites devoted to helping newcomers learn how to start researching their family history. If you are new to genealogy these are the sites you want to visit.

• Gen Newbie 
• Ontario GenWeb Excellent tutorial on "How To Start Your Family History"
• Rootsweb Guide Guide to Tracing your Family Tree - There is a section specific to Canadian research.

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Html Tools and Guides

• Webmonkey Great articles on developing web sites. From basic html guides to learning how to use CCS and scripting languages such as cgi and php to run on your site.
• WebAlley Excellent html tutorials and web design guides. Tips on how to use graphics on your website. Tutorials to teach you everyting you need to know to create and publish your first website.
• HTML-Kit A free, full-featured, customizable, multi-purpose html editor designed to help HTML, XHTML and XML authors to create and publish web pages.
• TSW WebCoder Free full featured web editor with built in ftp support.
• AlleyCode Fully functional free html wysiwyg editor for all knowledge levels of html. (Includes Step by Step first Web site).
• EditPad Lite A general-purpose text editor free for non-commercial use.

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Free Antivirus Software

• AVG Anti-Virus FREE Edition - This is the aniti virus progam I use and recommend. It is available free-of-charge to home users for the life of the product! It is easy to setup and includes automatic database updates.
• AntiVir Personal Edition - offers effective virus protection for your computer. AntiVir detects and removes more than 80,000 viruses, includes a resident virus Guard to monitor file movements automatically, protection against macro viruses, boot and master boot record viruses and an update wizard for easy updating.
• Avast Antivirus Home Edition - a full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users, non-commercial users. Both the virus database and the program itself are updated automatically, giving you an up-to-date virus database and antivirus program all the time - it is the most certain way to protect your computer.

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Free Firewall Software

• Sygate Personal Firewall - This is the firewall I use and recommend. Sygate prevents unauthorized or malicious applications from bypassing the firewall and  protects your PC from hackers, trojans, spyware, worms and other known & unknown threats. Users have the option to check for updates manually in addition to automatic update checking.
• Kerio Personal Firewall - is free for home and personal use. available in two flavors - the full edition and the limited free edition. After installation, KPF works as the full edition for 30 days, after which it becomes the limited free edition. Limited free edition does not provide the content filtering capabilities such as blocking pop-up windows, ads, VB scripts, cookies, and other extra features.
• ZoneAlarm - Easy-to-use firewall blocks hackers and other unknown threats. Stealth mode automatically makes your PC invisible to anyone on the Internet. ZoneAlarm is free for individual and not-for-profit usage. 
• Securepoint Personal Firewall - an excellent and economical choice for users,who want to secure the Internet connection. The Securepoint Personal Firewall & VPN Client represents the intersection between your local PC and the Internet. It also supervises all transfer of data. The Personal Firewall automatically hides your PC. That means it makes the PC invisible for possible attackers and catches suspicious connections. Unnoticed passing-on of personal data will become impossible. Automatic update check for newest versions.

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Free Anti SpyWare

To learn more about spyware, adware, torjans, parasites and computer applications I suggest reading this: http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

• AdAware Personal Edition Removes known spyware, and tracking components. It should be noted that the FREE Edition does not provide real-time monitoring and blocking for your system. The Free Edition does scan your memory, registry, harddrive and detects known privacy threats for removal, but it does not block them from invading your system in the first place. This feature is only available in paid version. For this reason I recommend using this in combination with the software programs below.
• Spybot Search and Destroy Roots out spyware, hijackers and other malware. Free updates but you must check for updates manually.
• Microsoft Windows Antispyware (BETA) Offers real time spyware protection. Updates are automatically downloaded to your PC so you are always up to date. Requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher and Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server™ 2003 operating system. Beta version is free.
• SpywareGuard Provides a real-time solution to protect your PC against spyware. SpywareGuard scans files before you open them and prevents execution if spyware is detected.
• SpywareBlaster Prevents the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted pests.

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