1851 and 1871 Canadian Census Non-Population Schedules

While doing some Canadian census research a few months ago, I could have sworn I read that none of the non-population schedules had survived for any year. Thankfully, I was wrong; some of the non-population schedules do exist for the 1851 Censuses of Canada East (Quebec) and Canada West (Ontario) and for the 1871 Census of Canada.

Sadly, not even the population schedule survived for Stanstead County, Quebec from 1851 and that is where most of my Canadian ancestors lived then. Also, while I am fortunate to have the population schedules for my families in Sherrington, Huntingdon County, Quebec, it appears that those agricultural schedules did not survive. Nevertheless, I can still point you in the right direction.

To find the 1851 agricultural schedules which are not indexed, go to the Library and Archives Canada website and find the Online Records drop-down in the blue bar near the top, then choose Censuses from the drop-down.

Then click on 1851 Census.

Then on Schedules.

Which will bring you to this page. After choosing the schedule you want, you will get a PDF file with links to various pages which you'll have to look through to find your family. As you can see, enumerator instructions are available by following the LAC instructions.

Finding your family in the 1871 non-population schedules is a bit different. First, you'll need to have a look at your family in Schedule No. 1, the population schedule, and take note of the page number, the line number of your head of household and the district and sub-district information for your family.

Next, I went to the page for the 1871 Census (Canada) and scrolled down to the green box.

Clicking on the finding aid for Quebec brought me to the list of microfilm numbers by District and sub-district.

Now, back to the screen with the green box and this time you choose Microform Digitization Tool.

This will bring you to the list of microfilm reels. Once you find the right reel, you will have to search through the images because they are not indexed. Have those district and sub-district names and numbers handy.

Once you find the right sub-district, you'll need the page and line number of your head of household from Schedule No. 1 in order to find him or her on the rest of the schedules. John Dean was on Page 51, line 8.

Using the page and line numbers, you can find your ancestor.  This is schedule 3 - Return of public institutions, real estate, agricultural vehicles and implements. It appears that some of my Quebec ancestors were enumerated on forms in French in 1871 and some on forms in English. If you need a translation of the headings, they are above the green box as shown above under Schedules.  My farming ancestors had information in Schedules 3, 4, 5 and 7. Any schedules shown as "missing" probably just weren't taken, mining schedules wouldn't have been completed if an area had no mines.

I hope you find as much wonderful information as I did. More about that in another post.