Canada Business Records and Commerce

Business records include records of manufacturers, trading companies, banks, and other commercial establishments.

Hudson’s Bay Company. Records of this fur trading company are some of Canada’s most important. Until 1870, the company controlled almost four-fifths of the territory of present-day Canada, including northern Quebec and Ontario and most of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories. It was also active in areas now in the United States, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Hawaii.

The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives to about 1904 are not at the Family History Library but may be loaned to public libraries. There are journals and correspondence (1,900 rolls of microfilm) for more than 200 trading posts (1703–1894), and lists of officers, servants, and contracts (1774–1904). Records of employees usually give name, age, occupation, pay rate, and location of employment. Further information is available from:

Inter-Library Loans
Hudson’s Bay Company Archives Provincial Archives of Manitoba Tel: 204-945-3744 Fax: 204-945-4261 Toll Free in North America: 1-866-MANITOBA (1-866-626-4862)' TTY: 204-945-4796 E-mail:'[mailto:mgi@gov.mb.ca mgi@gov.mb.ca] Hours: Monday to Friday 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CST'' The Family History Library has only a few business records for Canada. The most helpful is:

Finding Aid to the Hudson Bay Company Archives. (FHL film 1730847 and 1730848). This is not a name index to the records but a description of the various series in the records.

Personal names from some of these records are in:

Briggs, Elizabeth, and Anne Morton. Biographical Resources at the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. Volume One. Winnipeg: Westgarth, 1996. (FHL book 971 U33b v. 1). This book describes microfilm and book sources and tells where to find them. It includes a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and an index. Pages 48 to 59 list more than 1,100 men associated with the North West Company before 1821. Pages 153 to 158 list persons associated with expeditions to the American Northwest (present Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon) from 1824 to 1829.

For more records, see the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under headings such as:

CANADA - BUSINESS RECORDS AND COMMERCE

[PROVINCE] - BUSINESS RECORDS AND COMMERCE