Canada Census Mortality Schedules - FamilySearch Historical Records

Canada

What is in this Collection?
Mortality schedules are death registers recorded at the national level, usually as part of a census. This collection consists of an index of the 1871 census mortality schedules for the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario.

The official enumeration date for this census was April 2, 1871, and these records cover deaths which occurred during the 12 months immediately prior to the census enumeration. The age given in the census was rounded up to what would have been the deceased’s age at his or her next birthday.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
Mortality schedule records may contain the following information:


 * Name of deceased
 * Age of deceased
 * Year and place of birth
 * Month and place of death
 * Marital status
 * Religion

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know:
 * The name of your ancestor.
 * The place where your ancestor lived.
 * The approximate date of death.
 * The names of other family members and their relationships.

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information in the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the death information listed to find other documents like a death certificate, obituary, mortuary record, cemetery record, or probate record.
 * Use the age to estimate a birth date. With a date and place of birth, you can search for a birth record.
 * Use the religion mentioned in the record to search for church records in the surrounding area.
 * Use this information to look for other records that may provide information about the individual and other family members, such as parents, siblings, spouses, and children. For example, if you find a child in the mortality records, look for possible parents in the living schedules of the 1871 Census.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * Your ancestor may have used a nickname or a different surname, or the registrar spelled the name wrong. See Name Variations in Canadian Indexes and Records.
 * Your ancestor might have lived at a different time from the years you were looking.
 * Not every death was registered.
 * Try looking in a different area. Enumeration was by census/voting district or lot number, not by county. Although many census districts were synonymous with cities and counties, census district and county boundaries were not always the same.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):