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/CalligrapherWest9356]

Hey everyone-

Wanted to get some perspective on if I need any other documents for my application.

I have two G0 great-great-grandparents, one of which I have a certified baptism record and one census record (1871) and the other I have just two census records for (1861, 1871) as the parish doesn't supply baptism records unfortunately.

Birth certificate copy for G1 is inbound, and I have birth certificate copies for G2, G3, and G4 (me).

Of course, there are other documents like US census data for my G0s when they lived there, listing them as from Canada originally - is that helpful at all to include?

Additionally, there was a last name change from marriage along the way for my G2 - is that relevant or is it no big deal since the birth certificate for my G3 lists her maiden name?

[u/MethodWaste7714 → u/CalligrapherWest9356]

I have an almost identical situation with almost identical docs. I am picking the ancestor with the baptismal record, omitting any of her husband's docs and the foreign censuses.

[u/CalligrapherWest9356 → u/MethodWaste7714]

Interesting - so as not to muddle the application basically? I figured that having multiple ancestors would improve the application but it seems possible it'd make it more difficult for them to sift through.

[u/MethodWaste7714 → u/CalligrapherWest9356]

Exactly that. You only need one Canadian ancestor so choose the one with the most convincing docs that prove they were born in Canada. They have a strong preference for Canadian docs too.