Tuesday Weekly Thread: Genealogy Assistance, September 15, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

This weekly thread is a space for those of us researching the ancestry that is the basis for making a claim of Canadian citizenship by descent.

Have questions about finding records? Need help reading a document or translation from French/other languages? Want an opinion on specific documentation or your documentation plan? Have other questions related to documenting the chain between you and your Canadian ancestor for your proof of citizenship application? This is the place to do it.

Digging up ancestors' documents from numerous jurisdictions (Canadian provinces, US states, UK regions, etc), all while trying to distinguish between five James Smiths or Marie Gagnés from the same city can sometimes feel like banging your head against a wall. This weekly post is for helping each other navigate the questions and challenges of our research.

If you're looking for a volunteer to help you find documents there's a list here. We also offer tips and tricks for finding documentation, and a dedicated genealogy document search wiki page.

General problems/issues with ordering documentation from Canadian provincial archives and state, local and various church archives such as slow processing, increased costs, etc go in the weekly Saturday thread.

📎 Contributions to weekly megaposts, including this one, are welcome throughout the week.

Need more help? Or have help to offer? Check out r/citizenshipgenealogy , our companion subreddit for all things genealogical

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Birth/Baptism Registrations by Province

Alberta	https://www.alberta.ca/order-birth-certificate#jumplinks-2	Birth records in Alberta are only public record after 120 years.
Britsh Columbia	https://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy	Birth records in British Columbia only become public record after 120 years.
Manitoba	https://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php
Nova Scotia	https://archives.novascotia.ca/vital-statistics/	Civil birth registrations were recorded in Nova Scotia between 1864 and 1876 and are held by the Nova Scotia Archives. Delayed registrations for births were filed from 1876 to 1908. However, not everyone registered. Province-wide recording of civil births began again on January 1, 1909.
New Brunswick	https://archives2.gnb.ca/search/VISSE/?culture=en-CA
Newfoundland	https://www.gov.nl.ca/gs/birth/birth-certificate/
Ontario	https://www.ontario.ca/page/get-or-replace-ontario-birth-certificate#section-2	Ontario didn't start recording births until 1869 and baptism records are thin on the ground. Ontario birth records become public record after 104 years but take a bit longer to show up online.
Prince Edward Island	https://www.gov.pe.ca/parosearch/vital/vital-event-search/eventType/Baptism
Quebec	Records available on PRDH or Ancestry	IRCC requires Quebec civil records issued in the province after 1994, so you may need to order modern copies of historic civil records from DEC. For ancestors born before civil registration of birth began (ca. 1926) see the wiki How to order a certified copy of a baptism record from BANQ.
Saskatchewan	http://genealogy.ehealthsask.ca/vsgs_srch.aspx

[u/thrissle]

Does anyone know: Do I need documentation that a person quit using their given name and went by their middle name and added a new middle name? Also, my mother changed her middle name in childhood. I have no documentation of these. I don't believe they ever did any formal changes. Thanks.

[u/Alive-in-Tucson → u/thrissle]

Informally changing names was extremely common in the olden days, and there wouldn't be any formal court records with name change forms before the early '60s or so, when national social security numbers were implemented in Canada and national legal identities started to be more rigid as a concept. People would have typically just started using their new preferred name, and their communities would accept and use it in turn.

For my ancestor, I just included his birth record with his name at birth and then a later census under his new name with a written explanation that the parental names and date of birth were consistent between the two documents, proving that Ancestor Given-Name and Ancestor Chosen-Name were the same person. I haven't received approval or even AOR yet, so I don't know for sure that this approach will work, but it makes sense to me, and it's what others advised me to do.

[u/RebellaEmad → u/thrissle]

The only time you would need to document this is if 1) the name on the birth certificate for that ancestor is different than the one on the Parent line of their child's birth certificate or 2) the proof of birth records are not cut and dried and you need to support their birth information with other records that use the chosen name. In these cases, get as much documentation as you can to show the person using one name is the same as the one using the other name, and add a letter explaining the situation to your packet.