Stories

A soldier's record, found after 80 years

Research Discovery

The family knew the basic facts: he went to war, he came home, he never spoke about it. By the time anyone thought to ask, he was gone. Two generations passed with a name and nothing more.

When his granddaughter reached out, she had his full name, a rough birthdate, and a province. That was enough.

Library and Archives Canada holds the service files of over 620,000 Canadians who served in the First World War. The Canadian Expeditionary Force records — digitized and searchable — are one of the greatest genealogical resources in the country. Within two days, we had located his attestation paper.

"Attested: October 1915, Winnipeg. Age 21. Trade: farmer. Next of kin: mother, Mrs. Agnes Thornton, Portage la Prairie."

From there, the pension file. The wounded-in-action record. A mention in a regimental diary. A newspaper list of wounded from the Winnipeg Tribune, 1917 — his name, in ink, for the first time.

The granddaughter had the list framed. That piece of newspaper, 108 years old, now hangs in her kitchen.

From Galicia to the Prairies: one family's crossing

Immigration Research

Between 1896 and 1914, more than 170,000 Ukrainians immigrated to the Canadian Prairies. They came from the Austro-Hungarian provinces of Galicia and Bukovyna, recruited by Clifford Sifton's promise of free land and a new life.

Most arrived with almost nothing. A family name that was often misspelled by immigration officers. A religion that didn't have a church within 200 kilometres. A language that nobody around them spoke.

Finding these ancestors requires knowing where to look — because the records don't always look the way you'd expect.

In one research project, a client knew her great-great-grandparents were "Ukrainian" and had come "around 1900." By searching Hamburg emigration records (where many eastern European immigrants boarded their transatlantic ships), I found the family on a manifest from 1903. The name was spelled three different ways across three documents — which is entirely typical.

The homestead file at Library and Archives Canada named the original land quarter. That quarter still exists. The client visited it.

The ancestor who changed his name at the border

Brick Wall Research

Name changes are one of the most common — and most frustrating — brick walls in North American genealogy. An ancestor arrives as one name, lives as another, and the researcher is left hunting for someone who doesn't appear in the records they're searching.

In one case, a client's great-grandfather could be found clearly in records from 1920 onward under an English name. But earlier records were a complete blank. No birth record. No immigration record. No marriage record in the name he used.

The breakthrough came from a peculiarity in the 1916 Manitoba Census: an enumerator had written the name with a note — "formerly Kowalski" — beside it. A small detail, easily missed.

With the original surname, a Hamburg manifest appeared immediately. A marriage record in a Catholic parish register in Winnipeg. A naturalization record. The full picture appeared within two research sessions.

He hadn't tried to hide his history. He'd simply become someone his new country could pronounce.

5 things you can learn from a single census record

Canadian Genealogy Tips

Most people search census records to confirm a name or a date. But a single census entry holds far more than that — if you know what to look for.

1. Relationship structure. Who was living in the household? Boarders, parents-in-law, or younger siblings can point to collateral lines you hadn't considered.
2. Birthplace of parents. Canadian census records (from 1881 onward) often list the birthplace of a person's father and mother — not just the person themselves. This can push your research back a generation instantly.
3. Religion. In smaller communities, the denomination listed narrows your search for church records significantly. A "Presbyterian" in rural Nova Scotia is going to a different register than a "Methodist."
4. Occupation and land value. These tell you something about economic status that shapes what other records might exist — wills, land transfers, city directories.
5. Neighbours. In rural areas especially, people settled near people they knew. The family on the next farm may be relatives, or they may be from the same village in the old country. Always look at the surrounding entries.