Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined and it is the world's second largest country.
Canada is Huron-Iroquoian Indian word (Kanata) meaning "Big Village or Settlement".
There are ten provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan). There are three territories:
Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut.Ottawa, Ontario is the capital city.
Canada is one of the least densely populated and most prosperous countries in the world. The population of approximately 32,225,000 in 2009, is spread out over a vast 9,984,670 square kilometers (3,855,101 square miles). By comparison, the population of the
United States is approximately 305,000,000, ten times that of
Canada.
Like the United States, Canadahas a number of excellent sites, including
Immigration Records; LandGrants; Port of Entry Lists; Passenger Ship Arrivals
and more. Emigration information of the nineteenth century and the ships they came on - are a
great starting point for solid research information http://www.ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html
The immigrant records of those entering Canada are in the Canadian Archives in Ottawa
and the US records of those who crossed from Canada are in the National Archives in Washington with copies at various branches around the
United States. Immigration records for the years 1924-1935 are available at the
Canadian Archives website http://www.archives.ca/02/02011802_e.html
Wonder how German/Austrian-born Jews got to Canada and Australia?
In May 1940 the British rounded up all male "enemy aliens" including tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who had been given security clearance earlier by local "tribunals." (It is suspected that this was a public opinion ploy to "prove" to the public that the British exerted some sort of power, despite the defeat at Dunkirk.) The men were marched through the streets and jeered by the local population as "captured spies." Most were sent to the
Isle of Man (in the Irish Sea) and put up in the empty hotels.
The British offered them an opportunity to go to Canada or
Australia, and promised to arrange for their families to follow. They were put on military transports together with captured German soldiers. The British ship officers regarded the Germans as "honorable" soldiers (and the Jews as cowards who had betrayed their German homeland) and put the German POW's in charge.
The crossings were severely traumatic experiences and there were many suicides among the Jews. Most of those interned in IoM were released, after further security processing, in late 1940. The families did not, of course, get sent over to be with their husbands and fathers.
Posted by Michael Bernet
Recent studies show that Canadian Jews tend to be more traditional than their American cousins. About 40 percent of the Canadian Jews identify themselves as being Orthodox Jews; 40 percent as Conservative Jews and 20 percent as Reform Jews. The Canadian Jewish Community grew during the 1990s to nearly 330,000. The 2001 Canadian census indicates that the Jewish population increased by 3.7% during the 1990s. More than half of
Canada's Jews, 190,800, live in the province of Ontario. About 175,000 live in the
Toronto area.
Incentives were offered by the Canadian Government, the Railways and some of the shipping companies to bring immigrants to Canada. The traditional migration route, once the Canadian Pacific Railroad was completed, was either by ship to
Halifax, St. John, Quebec, or Montrealand then by train to various towns in Canada. Other possibilities for those emigrating to Canada could have been
New York to Chicago or Duluth, Minnesota, etc.
They came directly from Europe to western Canada. Many went to agricultural colonies scattered across the prairies. The main incentive was the availability of land. Some had help from the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association, founded by Baron Hirsch) or other similar organizations.
"The only online immigrations records for Canada are for arrivals after 1935, and that's just an index. But all is not lost. First, you should determine - or guess - at which US border city he came into America. Records for those crossings do exist, are microfilmed, and available from the Mormon Library, nearby US National Archives, etc. There are the St. Albans Lists, the most well known of the records. These encompass the many small border towns in New England. There are also two or three sets for New York State border crossings, and records for those who entered via Detroit. These records may indicate when your grandfather actually arrived in Canada - or they may not. The more you can narrow down the date he arrived, the easier the next step will be."
"The ship arrival lists for Canada *are* microfilmed, and stored at the Canada National Archives. They are available via inter-library loan to approved institutions in the United States, such as libraries. There is usually no cost to borrow the films. Note: The passenger arrival lists are *not* indexed. Additional note: More often than not, the films are wound backwards on the rolls, which means you don't know the ship's name or arrival date until *after* you've looked at the names. Additional note: Only the first page of each manifest notes the ship and travel information."
"Check with your local library about doing an interlibrary or inter-institutional loan. (Be sure to deal with a library which has microfilm readers onsite). If they haven't gotten things from the Canada National Archives before, you may want to take them the information from the Canada National Archives website."
"Another note: The library has gotten *much* more efficient about shipping microfilms lately. While the backlog used to be 4-6 months, now they ship films within a few days. However, the loan time period is much shorter than it used to be. So order fewer films more frequently."
On the left side of the page, click on Browse Selected Topics, then on Genealogy and Family History. Click on the first link in the body of the text, Genealogy Research, Archive Resources. Find the list of available resources, click in Immigration. Click on Passenger Lists 1865 - 1935. Browse and read."From a posting by Hilary Henkin
Canadian Addresses There are some very valuable sites, believe me. I have used these sites in my continuous researching of my wife's family ---
SMOLKIN --- from
Ossipovich, Belaruswho emigrated to Montreal in the late 1800s. Should you, in your research come across this surname, I would appreciate, as a favor to my wife, if you would let me know if you find any information about the Smolkin name. It will be most appreciated
Jwebindex@gmail.com I sincerely hope you too will find a great amount of interesting information from this site.
About 25% of Canadians have at least one family tie to the U.S., if you go back 2 to 3 generations. So, if you are in need of Canadian documents, Eve Greenfield suggests the following: "I got the info from the
StateDepartment's Foreign Affairs Manual, which lists addresses to write for biographic docs all over the world. For
Manitoba, the appropriate agency
Ask them to send you a request form for the genealogical birth certificate; Canada issues three types of birth certificates, but the genealogical one is actual microfilm copy of the form that was filled out when the birth was recorded. The fee is $25 Canadian (US $18), which you will need to send them probably in the form of a postal money order.
One catch: you will need the written permission of the individuals in question to have documents released to you, if they are living, or permission of their next of kin, if they are deceased.
Most books, CDs, etc. can be ordered through my link to Amazon.com by just
clicking here
> Jewish Genealogy etc.
"A Checklist of Registers of Protestant & Jewish Congregations in Quebec"
Authored by Neil Broadhurst Jewish Genealogy etc.
"A Coat of Many Colours: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada"
Authored by Irving Abella and published in
Toronto by Lester & Orpen Dennys in 1990.
Jewish Genealogy etc.
"Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Jewry" Authored by Lawrence Tapper
"The Books of Remembrance" Contains the names of Canadians who fought in wars and died either during or after them. These books are now available on-line
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/books/remember.htm
"Jewish Experiences in Early Manitoba" Authored by Arthur A. Chiel and published by Manitoba Jewish Publications in 1955
Jewish Genealogy etc.
"Jews in Manitoba: A Social History" Authored by Arthur A. Chiel and published in
Toronto by the University of Toronto Press in 1961
"Journey into our Heritage: The Story of the Jewish People in the Canadian West" Probably no longer in print. authored by Henry Gutkin and published in
Toronto by Lester & Orpen Dennys in 1980.
Jewish Genealogy etc.
"Land of Promise" The Jewish Historical Society of Alberta has aphotohistory book of the Jews who settled in
Calgary and surrounding area.
"Through Narrow Gates: A Review of Jewish Immigration
Colonization and Immigrant Aid Work in Canada (1840-1940)" Authored by Simon Belkin and published in Montreal by Canadian Jewish Congress and Jewish Colonization Association in 1966
Jewish Genealogy etc.
Canadian census of 1901.
The entries given are in easily readable form, and there is a place for one to enter corrections. The original census records are also visible. www.archives.ca/02/020122/02012209_e.html
* "W" for whites (people of European descent) * "R" for red (Native Canadians) * "B" for black (people of African descent) * "Y" for yellow (people of Japanese and Chinese descent)
* "B" pour blanche (personnes d'origine europeenne) * "R" pour rouge (autochtones canadiens) * "N" pour noire (personnes d'origine africaine) * "J" pour jaune (personnes d'origine japonaise ou chinoise)
How they distinguish between "B" for black and "B" for blanche (white) is not clear.
Canada Has always allowed access to its census records 92 years after collection of the data. The
1901 census was released to the public in 1993. In 2003, the 1911 census
was released
http://globalgenealogy.com/Census
The Pursers were instructed to fill in the information required in columns 17 (Country |of Birth) and 19 (Race of People). Immigration officials were responsible for columns 3 (Amount of Cash $) and 20 (Destination Post Office) Different color forms were to be used for each of three classes: steerage - white, interims - yellow and saloon - blue.
The countries were mostly European and reflected the great fragmentation of the
Balkan States at the time (Serbia, Croatia and Dalmatia) There were some anomalies in that names were listed for some geographical entities that were not a state e.g. Galicia.
There were five categories of the Hebrew race: Hebrew NES (NotOtherwiseSpecified)Hebrew Austrian, Hebrew German, Hebrew Polis and Hebrew Russian. In the column under religious Denomination, Hebrew would be shown for persons of the Hebrew race. Some Pursers preferred to us the term Jew instead of Hebrew in spite of the fact that the term Jew was not included in the listing of races.
Ukrainian is not listed, the official term listed is "Ruthenian" (Russniak).
The immigrants were required to have at least $25 in cash when they landed. That would equate to two or three hundred of today's dollars.
Pier21
Many Canadians
and some U.S. citizens arrived in the 'new country' at Pier 21 on the
Halifax waterfront. Actually 1.5 million immigrants first set foot on
Canadian soil at this pier. During WW II, 3,000 British evacuee children, 50,000 war brides and their 22,000 children, over 100,000 refugees and 368,000
Canadian troops bound for Europe passed through Pier 21. Check out this site http://www.pier21.ns.ca/pier21.html
US Ports of Entry Many immigration stations were set up along the Canadian borders as well as other seaports on the east, west and Texas coast. Passenger manifest information for these ports have been archived and are available on microfilm at the National Archives as well as the Family History Centers. http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/toolbox/ports/
TheCanadian Archives website provides detailed information on how to access immigration records, border crossings and passenger lists. They offer some level of researcher services. There is also an on-line database covering the years 1925-1935 -- searchable by surname, given name, ship, port of arrival, year of arrival. It can take a bit of time and sometimes, imagination, on how names might have been spelled, but it works.
http://www.archives.ca/exec.naweb.dll?fs&02020204&e&top&0
National Archives of Canada Offers a highly useful booklet that is downloadable at http://www.archives.ca/00/00_e.html#top and click on "Publications". Available in both English and French.
The Canadian government did not keep records of people leaving the country; however in 1895, the
United States established border ports along the International Boundary and began recording arrivals from
Canada. These lists are in the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. 20408
To request information from the Province where the
Naturalization was obtained Obtain a Freedom of Information form, from government sources or on-line and send the form with the fee of $5.00 and the request to the
Citizenship and Immigration Department in Ottawa. Proof of death of the individual is required or permission from that person for the release of the information, if the person you are researching is alive.
Records of immigrants arriving at Canadian land and sea ports from January 1, 1936 onwards Remain in the custody of
Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Requests for copies of
landing records should be mailed to their office as noted in their
web site http://www.archives.ca
TheNational Archives ofCanada Provides detailed information on how to access immigration records, border crossings and passenger lists. The also offer some research services. Also, you will find an on-line database covering the years 1925 to 1935 - searchable by surname, given name, ship, port of arrival and year of arrival. However, the site also says that in order to obtain a Naturalization Records, one must either live in
Canada; be a Canadian Citizen; or apply from Canada. There is a form to be filled out which is only available in
Canada, plus a fee.
http://www.archives.ca/exec/naweb.dll?fs&02020204&e&top&0
During some of these periods, the wife did not have to apply for naturalization. She automatically became a Canadian citizen upon her husband's naturalization.
Though prior to 1947, Canadians were British subjects so anyone coming to Canada, who was a British citizen automatically became a Canadian citizen.
Canadian Genealogical source Has links to: Census records; Birth, marriage, death, divorce and adoption records, land records, Métis records, wills and estate records, Military records, Immigration records, Home children, Citizenship (naturalization)
records, Loyalist sources, LI-RA-MA (Russian Consular records), Employment records, school records and newspapers.
If you have a family member who entered
North America through Canada, the following site lists microfilm and microfiche of
Imperial Russian Consular Records in Canada for the years 1898-1922. The
Passport/Identity Papers series consists of about 11,400 files on Russian and East European immigrants (Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, Finns, etc.) who settled in
Canada in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The files include documents such as
passport applications and background questionnaires. Many of the records are written in
Russian Cyrillic; the National Archives does not provide a translation service http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html
Application for copies of the Naturalization records
Must be submitted on an Access to Information request Form (this form can be picked up at a Public Library or a Government Office). A check for $5.00 payable to Receiver General For Canada must be enclosed. Proof of death, copy of certificate, obit, photo of gravesite must be included. Include all known information: Full name, date and place of birth, certificate #, if known. If applying for a search for your own citizenship records, the cost is $75.00. If you only require a photo copy - file a Personal Information Request Form - there is no fee for this service. http://www.archives.ca/www/svcs/english/GenealogicalSources.html#Citzenship.Records
Ship Manifests Application for copies of the Naturalization records must be submitted on an Access to Information Request Form (can be picked up at a Public Library or a Government office). A check for $5.00 payable to Receiver General For
Canada must be enclosed. Proof of death, copy of certificate, obit, photo of gravesite must be included. Include all known information including: Full name, date and place of birth, certificate # if known. If applying for a search for your own citizenship records, the cost is $75.00. If you only require a photo copy - file a Personal Information Request Form - there is no fee for this service http://www.archives.ca/08/08_e.html
Available for many years on microfilm for the ports of Quebec and
Halifax/Saint John, NB from 1867 to 1919 at the Canadian National Archives. Later manifests were held by the Immigration Department and the information could only be obtained using the access to Information Act procedures, which were not simple. Manifests (or microfilms) from 1919 to 1935 have been transferred to Archives and are undergoing processing. This has proved to be much more time consuming than the
Archives expected and some of the old microfilms were not of archival quality and were very difficult to copy. http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title08/8-1.0.1.2.44.html
There is quite a bit of information and essays and links that I need to explore at some future date, but you can start the process now
http://www.tccweb.org/immigrat.htm
Assimilation / Destination:
Canada / Hamburg & Bremen / Immigrants and Epidemics /
Life In Canada / Reasons
For Immigration To America And including: Immigrants to Canada in Nineteenth Century; Immigration History Research Center; Immigrant and Passenger Arrivals on Microfilm NARA; Immigration at the turn of the 20th Century; Immigrants and Tenement Life; Locating Ship Passenger Lists; Passenger Lists on the Internet and more! http://www.tccweb.org/immigration.htm
A weekly newspaper published in
Toronto is probably the most widely read Canadian Jewish newspaper, however there are about 20 Jewish periodicals and newspapers published in Canada today. http://www.cjnews.com/
A site that offers information and links.
Canadian Genealogy Pages; National Resources; Alberta Sites; British Columbia Sites; Manitoba Sites; New Brunswick Sites; Newfoundland and Labrador Sites; Northwest Territories Sites; Nova Scotia Sites; Ontario Sites; Prince
Edward Island Sites; Quebec Sites; Saskatchewan Sites; Yukon Territory and Acadian Sites. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cgaunt/canada.html
This is an internal department of
Canadian Pacific Railway, and provides fee-based services to the public. To use their services, you must send a detailed request in writing specifying the intended end use.
Lots of information about ships arriving in Canada during the 19th century along with info for other countries. Click on this hyperlink > Immigration to Canada
An interesting article. Select the year 1998 for 'back articles' and then Wednesday, August 26, 1998 issue. The story is well worth reading. There is also a
Jewish Historical Society of the Yukon and there is research of at least one Jewish cemetery. http://www.yukonweb.com/
Passenger Lists The
inGeneas Database contains passenger list records for immigrants arriving at
Canadian ports between 1748 and 1873. For the most part, these records have been extracted from microfilm of the original manifests held at several archives and libraries. The
inGeneas Database contains records from a variety of immigration records (other than passenger lists) for the time period of 1748 to 1906. For the most part, these records
have been extracted from microfilm of the original records held at several archives and libraries http://sydaby.eget.net/swe/emi_ref.htm
Customs Regulations for Goods Shipped to Ukraine:
According to the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the following items can be imported to Ukraine tax-free: food products; pharmaceuticals (certified in Ukraine); clothing; shoes; bed linens: and articles of personal hygiene. If it is obvious that the number of items sent to one recipient is unreasonable and exceeds the quantity necessary for an individual user, these shipments will have to be cleared through the customs as a commercial cargo. Goods subject to customs duties: TV sets, Video Players and VCRs, computers, radio telephones, etc; household appliances; genuine leather and fur (new); luxury items; cosmetics; compact discs, tapes. http://ukraine.visahq.ca/customs/
Between 1869 and the early 1930s, over 100,000 children were sent to
Canada from
Great Britain during the child emigration movement. Members of the
British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa are locating and indexing the names of
these Home Children found in passenger lists in the custody of the
National Archives of Canada. A listing of ships coming to Canada that list the date, year, name of the ship, Destination and sex of young immigrants are available in a searchable database http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/shps3.html
St. Alban's is a town in Vermont, but this list nonetheless includes all entries into the
US from Canada via Atlantic and Pacific ports and everything in between. A large number of immigrants came to the
United States via Canada during the mid- and late nineteenth century, and for them there is no
U.S. immigration record. They landed in Canada where no U.S. officer met them or recorded information about their arrival in the
United States.
The always-growing number of immigrants who chose this route in the late 1800s finally convinced the
United States, in 1894, to build and operate the bureaucratic machinery necessary to document the many thousands who each year entered at points along its northern border.
http://www.nara.gov/publications/prologue/stalbans.html
The former INS (now called the BCIS) has copies of Naturalization records created after late Sept 1906. To learn how to request copies of these see the "Finding Naturalization Records Created after 1906" section here
Emigrants who found themselves in Canada and decided they wanted to move on to the United States (and went through legally), may be on the
St Albans list. Check out the information available on the
NARA website
http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/immigration/immigrat.html
Many Canadians and some U.S. citizens arrived in the 'new country' at
Pier 21 on the
Halifax waterfront. Actually 1.5 million immigrants first set foot on Canadian soil at this pier. During WW II, 3,000 British evacuee children, 50,000 war brides and their 22,000 children, over 100,000 refugees and 368,000 Canadian troops bound for Europe passed through Pier 21. http://www.pier21.ca/
At this same site, you will find 'Stories of Pier 21' and an 'Index of Ships' that have arrived and/or departed from Pier 21. The list is not complete, but it is being constantly updated.
Passenger List Information: Can be obtained from special lists containing information including:
name, age, country of, occupation and intended destination of each passenger and are the official record of immigration, during certain periods of time.
Canadian411 (does not include Provinces of
Albertaand Saskatchewan) www.infospace.com
This site has over 10 million listings, including postal codes, full addresses as well as name of Province and phone numbers http://canada411.sympatico.ca
Vancouver - located in the western province of British Columbia,
Vancouver has a Jewish community today of about 25,000. The first Jewish settler was "Leaping" Louis Gold, arriving from Poland in 1872. He ran a general store in Gastown, and received his
leaping name because he was a small man who could leap high when the situation required it. At the end of the 19th century, Jewish immigrants arrived from
England, the U.S. and Central Europe. In 1916, the first synagogue was built and called the Orthodox Sons of Israel.
David Oppenheimer, a wealthy Jew, established Stanley Park. One of the most popular Jewish personality stories is the one about David Marks, a Vancouver tailor and synagogue president, who invited a visiting performer playing the local vaudeville theater to a family Passover Seder. Marks' daughter Sadie fell in love and married the performer, Benjamin Kubelsky of Chicago. The couple is better known by their stage names: Jack Benny and Mary Livingston.
There are two Conservative synagogues (Beth Israel and Har El) one Reform (Temple Sholom) two Orthodox (Schara Tzedeck and Louis Brier) one Sephardic Orthodox (Beth Ha'Midrash) one Hasidic (Chabad-Lubavitch) two Traditional (Shaarey Tefilah and Burquest) and one Renewal (Or Shalom). The city also boasts a Jewish School and an excellent Jewish community center with a huge library, a fine art collection, a pool, gym and a kosher snack bar. The center holds an annual Jewish Film Festival.
The Cloverdale Library, Genealogy Dept., has, on microfilm, passenger lists of ships arriving in Canadian ports from late 1890s into the 1920s. You need to know the approximate year of arrival, then you can search the film ship by ship and name by name until you find the required information. If you live outside the Cloverdale area, the charge is $2.00 for use of the viewing equipment. Photocopies directly from the microfilm is 10 cents a copy.
For information about the Jewish Community, get a copy of the free bi-annual magazine Jewish Life. E-mail address is
info@shalombc.org
British Columbia Archives
British
Columbia offers Births (1872-1896), Marriages (1872-1921) and deaths
(1872-1976) can be searched.
The British Columbia Archives' Vital Events Indexes page, which contains summary information on
historical births, deaths and marriagesthat were submitted to District Registrars and registered by the Director of Vital Statistics.
http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/textual/governmt/vstats/v_events.htm
Jewishfoundation.org
This site offers stories of Jewish families and why they had settled in
Winnipeg. Check the section entitled "Book of Life". www.jewishfoundation.org
Manitoba GenWeb Query Site Post your question here - there is no subscription required. No mail unless someone has information for you (or perhaps thinks there is a family connection) http://www.westmanitoba.com/
"From Kamenets-Podolski to Winnipeg: The History
of the Lechtziers, a Pioneering Canadian Family" Authored by Dr. Reuven Lexier, Lexier Editions 474 College St. #406, Toronto, ON M6G 1A4 This book will be of value to readers with an interest in Canadian Jewish communities, the role of faith in Canadian Jewish life, or genealogy relating to North Americans of
Ukrainian or Russian-Jewish origins. Genealogical information is given on more than 135 family members. ISBN 0-9682293-0-1
Jews have lived in
Canada's Atlantic or Maritime Provinces -- Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and
Newfoundland - since before the American Revolution. Many as retailers and peddlers. There are about 3,000 Jews living n the Maritimes, where they work in the professions, business and the arts. The largest number live in
Halifax which has a Jewish population of 1,700. Myra Freeman was the first female lieutenant governor of
Nova Scotia and the President of Dalhousie University is a Jewish man.
An excellent article by Elin Schoen Brockman appeared in Hadassah Magazine - October, 2004 issue. Also good reading is "Cape Breton Lives" - a collection from Ronald Caplan's Cape Breton's Magazine.
There is a Jewish Cemetery in Halifax (Baron de Hirsch Cemetery) and there are 10 identically marked headstones that bear the same date of April 15, 1912, the day the Titanic sunk. Eight of the marked stones were Jews whose names are not known as the stones are marked only with numbers. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nshalifa/Cemeteries.html
New Brunswick Has the only Jewish Museum in the Maritimes Located at 20 Wellington Row in St. John;
Phone: 506 633 1833 http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/sjjhm/
Sydney
Temple Sons of Israel 88 Mount Pleasant Street; Phone: 902 564 9819
in the Whitney Pier section, it is a conservative synagogue dating back to 1913 and is now the home of the Whitney Pier Historical Museum http://lemac2.tripod.com/index-185.html
Wellington
A small town about six miles from Yarmouth. There were part-time farmers and even a Hebrew teacher, but all had to supplement their meager earnings by peddling shmatas or
whatever else they could find to sell. http://www.county.wellington.on.ca/
Yarmouth The synagogue building was originally a church. The blue-painted building with a Star of David in its tower, still exists on William Street.
In the late 1860s and early 1870s, enterprising Jewish peddlers from Europe passed through this town plying their wares. Little is known about them except that they were always looking for a Jewish home where they could have a good Shabbes dinner. There was at least one resident Jewish couple in Yarmouth: Ketty and Louis Lieberman. Later, another Jewish settle arrived by name of Joseph Whitehouse who opened a clothing store which was closed on Saturdays but reopened on Saturday night.
One famous resident was Louis B. Mayer, who arrived here and became a junk peddler, but didn't succeed and went to the US where he eventually founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.
Almost all of the Jews of Yarmouth have immigrated to the US and Israel or to larger Canadian cities. There may be less than 10 still living here in 2009. An excellent article written by Judith Fein with photos by Paul Ross can be found in the December 2009 issue
of Hadassah Magazine.
Montreal Has a Jewish population of about 100,000 of which most are Ashkenazi, but there is a large group of French-speaking Sephardic Moroccan Jews now living in the city. Between
Montreal and Toronto, there are 12 Jewish schools and several Yeshivas. About 60 percent of the Jewish children in
Montrealattend Jewish primary schools and 30 percent are in Jewish high schools. The McGill University in Montreal
offers programs in Jewish studies and a course in learning Yiddish. My wife's first cousin, Zave Ettinger was quite involved with the school program. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Quebec.html
Baron De Hirsch Cemetery Located on Savane Street There are 20,000 records and images, about a quarter of the entire cemetery on-line - a
commercial site offers an on-line database www.jewishdata.com
Beth Tikva Synagogue Has a membership of over 800 families and celebrated its
36th anniversary in 2001. Rabbi Mordecai Zeitz, a former New Yorker, is the Rabbi. http://www.bethtikvah.qc.ca/
JGS of Montreal The Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal serves a city with one of the oldest Jewish communities in North America. The
first Jewish settlersarrived in 1760 and the first synagogue (in Canada), the Shearith Israel, was founded in 1768. Today,
Montreal has a thriving Jewish community of over 100,000. It is in honour of these forebears and those who came after that we introduce our society and research in
MontrealandQuebecto the Jewish genealogical community around the world. www.gtrdata.com/jgs-montreal/
Newspapers The Montreal Gazette
is now the major English language newspaper in Montreal. The history of this paper is given in a July 21, 2003 article by Benoit Aubin in Macleans's magazine. In it, he states that "The paper celebrates 225 years of publishing this summer, which makes it Quebec's oldest daily newspaper". The article can be accessed at: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0012494 [Note: copy and paste this long url to your browser to search the page]
Even during the Star's heyday, the Gazette was considered to be more 'social' than the
Star, and it, too, published obituaries, birth, engagement and marriage notices.
The JGS of Montreal has access to the Quebec Vital Records of 1841 - 1942,
plus a wealth of other resources pertaining to Montreal and Canadian Jewry and can be accessed at: http://www.jgs-montreal.org/
The above, from a posting by Merle Kastner
TheMontreal Star was the newspaper of record for Jewish Quebec when it ceased publishing on Sept. 25, 1979. I have been indexing the birth and death notices (Jewish and non-Jewish) from Sept. 1979, working backwards. To date, I have indexed almost 14,000 notices, covering January 1977 - June 30, 1977 and January 1978 - September 25, 1979. Requests for name searches during that time span may be e-mailed to
montrealstar@sbcglobal.netFrom a posting by Elaine Gordon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Star
Portuguese Congregation Where on the High Holidays you can hear the sounds of five separate services in five
different languages. http://www.spanishportuguese-mtl.org/
Ordering a Death Certificate in Ontario To order a death certificate http://www.cbs.gov.on.ca/mcbs/english/deaths.htm click on the link to download the form - you can print it out and mail it in.
"A checklist of registers of Protestant & Jewish
Congregations in Quebec" Author Neil Broadhurst
Jewish Genealogy Society of Ottawa
(Ontario)
Jewish Genealogy Society of Ottawa Congregation Machzikie Hadas 2310 Virginia Dr., Ottawa, ON, K1H 6S2 Telephone: (613) 723-5114 http://www.jgso.org/JGSOConstitution.html
Beth Israel Ohev Sholom Synagogue
1251 Place de Mericie Quebec City, Quebec Canada Tel: 418 688-3277
The only synagogue in the city of about 100 Jewish souls. The Rabbi is Aaron Sultan. Joseph Gabay is president of the Canadian Jewish Congress' Quebec region. There is also a Jewish cemetery. http://www.jewishinmontreal.com/Congregation-Beth-Israel-Ohev-Sholem.html
Saskatchewan Genealogical Society
Provide assistance to anyone researching their heritage in Saskatchewan and promotes, encourages and foster the study of genealogical and original research in the Province of
Saskatchewan. http://www.saskgenealogy.com/
Toronto's Jewish community is about 200,000 -- the largest Jewish population in
Canada. Rosalie Silberman Abella became Canada's first female Jewish Supreme Court justice; she had been the country's youngest judge when she was first appointed in 1976.
Archives
TheOntario Archives Will loan these microfilms to libraries via interlibrary loan. Further information can be found at http://www.gov.on.ca
Birth records on microfilm 1869-1902 Marriage records on microfilm 1873 - 1917 Death records
on microfilm 1869 to 1927
It is difficult to get more recent records from
Canada; their privacy laws are generally more restrictive than those of the US. The
Archives of Ontario has the records for marriages within the past 80 years. Earlier records are at the
Canada National Archives, and my be available through the Mormon Library. The Archives of Ontario conscientiously transfers records each year, to not keep records older than 80 years.
To get a marriage certificate from the
Archives of Ontario, you must be: for bride or groom parent or child of the bride or groom closest next-of-kin, executor, estate trustee, of the bride or groom, and one of them is deceased. A copy of the marriage certificate is $15.00 Canadian.
To get the long form of the application, you must be the bride or groom, closest next-of-kin, executor, or estate trustee, of the bride or groom and one of them is deceased. A copy of the long form is $22.00 Canadian.
Theformcan be downloaded -
Please note that this is a link to a PDF file; you'll need to have an adobe Acrobat Reader
(Available from Adobe for free) installed on your system to download the forms.From a posting by Hilary Henkin on www.Adobe.com
Aliza Libman, who grew up in
Toronto, wrote an article about the city in the August/September 2009 issue of Hadassah Magazine. http://www.hadassah.org/default2.asp
About 30,000 Israelis live in
Canada with most of them living in Toronto.
Agudas Achim Cemetery Neil Perry is the current President. Lilian Schorr placed a photo of a tombstone of a great aunt on JewishGen and mentioned that the cemetery is in disrepair with many fallen headstones. For further information about her visit to this cemetery,
contact Lilian lilianschorr@elsitio.net http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/node/109279/full
Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada (Toronto) Garry Stein, President P.O. Box 446, Station "A" Toronto, ON, M2N 5T1, Canada Phone & Fax: (905) 882-2259 E-mail:
info@jgstoronto.ca
Website: http://www.jgstoronto.ca/
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