JewishGen Discussion Group #JewishGen Re: Obtaining Canadian Immigration Records #general
Alan Greenberg
Subject: Re: Obtaining Canadian Immigration RecordsThere seems to be some confusion regarding various Canadian immigration records. With few exceptions, there are only two types of records available. Ship arrival records and naturalization records. The 1911 census form requested both the year of arrival in Canada and the year of naturalization. Ship arrival records are generally not indexed. Without knowing the port and approximate arrival date, it is virtually impossible to locate the correct record. The main exception is for the years 1925-35 which are indexed. There is a pointer to the search engine for these years on the JGS-Montreal home page (http://jgs-montreal.org). There is no citizenship or residency requirement for accessing these records. I think that the LDS Family History Library has all of these microfilms. Original naturalization records prior to 1915 are generally not available - all that remains is an index card containing very rudimentary information (equivalent to the details that you need to supply to get the record). Naturalizations for 1915-1932 have been indexed by the JGS-Montreal and are searchable on the Canadian Genealogy Centre's web site. It is accessible via the JGS-Montreal web site (the search engine is a bit cumbersome, but work is underway to streamline this). We are just starting a new project to index the 1931-51 records. The naturalization records contain a wealth of information, but perhaps most importantly, they usually give the port and exact date of arrival in Canada. If arrival was through the US, they usually also list the US arrival details. In many cases, a wife and children were naturalized along with the father. If the naturalization was prior to 1915, there are no original records, but if the wife or a child later applied for a naturalization certificate in their own name (quite common), many details of the original application (including arrival information) are often replicated in this later application. These naturalization records can only be requested by Canadian citizens or residents (they are available under the Canadian Access to Information laws, which grant access only to those categories of people). However, there is no requirement that the requestor be directly related to the person naturalized. So any friend or colleague who is Canadian or lives in Canada can make the request. Details of how to make the request and what information is required is also on the JGS-Montreal web site. Note that technically naturalization records can be requested without the index, but in practice the index provides the naturalization certificate number which increases the likelihood of a successful request. Alan Greenberg JGS-Montreal Montreal, Canada
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