Land records in Ontario, Canada, contain the largest source of wills for perhaps the earliest periods. Many wills were never probated and therefore never ended up in the surrogate court records. Most were simply filed and noted under what is called the 'general register' in Land Registry Offices. Still more wills never made it to either the surrogate court records or to the general register but are simply filed as ordinary land records ("instruments").

There is one case where a deed for a property was drawn up in the 1830's, however, the deed for this property, owned by a setttler was never filed in the Land Register Office in the 1830's. Instead, the deed was filed in the 1880's at the time the settler died. There, neatly filed beside each other, were the original deed from the 1830's and the Last Will and Testament of the settler which detailed members of his family and provided other valuable genealogical tidbits.

I was looking for my gr-gr-grandmother who had been an early settler in Eastern Ontario. Family legend told that she had lived to be over 80 years of age. Despite the fact that such a story would have meant this lady would have died during the period when there was vital registration in this province, the only death record I could find for a woman with that name was in Penetanguishine -- quite some distance from Nepean Township in Eastern Ontario. Although the age and other particulars could have fitted my ancestor, I could not comprehend how someone so old with such a long and difficult early history in Nepean Township could end up so far across the province at such an advanced age. After some searching in the land records, I happened upon a Bargain and Sale record for property owned by the son of my ancestor. What was unusual about this otherwise run of the mill land record was that the son had signed it from Penetanguishine. Yes, as it turned out, my ancestor had moved with her son to Penetanguishine where she died at almost 83 years of age. If it had not been for the land record the puzzle might never have been solved.

This is not a random example. There have been many instances where the owner of a property moves on to a distant place and when they finally sell the land, they end up conducting the business from the far distant place they moved to. In one instance, I found an illegitimate issue from one of my connections who had lived in Lanark County -- they ended up clear across the continent in a small community in Washington State, USA. The Bargain and Sale for the small piece of property in Lanark County was signed and dated from Washington State in the 1870's.

Remember, people came to Ontario/Canada West/Upper Canada in search of land and new opportunities. Much of our earliest history is intricately tied to the settlement of land throughout the province. People moved from east to west within the province for new land opportunities and those same people may have then moved on to Western Canada and the Western United States as land opened up there. It stands to reason, then, that the details of so much early history must somehow exist in the land records of this province. If we, as genealogists, spent half of the energy in the Land Record Office for the areas where our ancestors were than we do in census records, we would come out of the exercise so much richer -- with a wealth of information we never thought possible.

To prove ownership (title) to a piece of land, it is often necessary for surviving family members to prove they are entitled to the land either by sale or birth or affidavit or some other such paper trail. These documents are possibly the richest untapped genealogical resource I have encountered to date. If you don't know what exact lot and concession number your ancestor lived on, have a look at the alphabetical index to the general register. You may happen upon a will or other document for someone in the family or even your ancestor. That document, in turn, will probably tell you what lot and concession they lived on. In some offices there are alphabetical indexes for entire townships that will lead you to the lot and concession numbers, and all the documents associated with that persons tenure on a parcel of land.

When you finally get around to checking this rich resource, it is hoped the records you need have been preserved. The Association for the Preservation of Ontario Land Registry Office Documents (APOLROD) is working very hard to negotiate to preserve Ontario land records from 1868-1955. The government considers the actual documents themselves to be redundent now because they have declared the microfilm to be the legal copy. Many of us who have tried to use the microfilm have found some of the records to be readable and the copies not too bad; however, the images of some documents were of a substandard quality. In some instances, the documents themselves were never microfilmed. Given the old writing utensils used, some of the writing in the original is often awkward to read because the ink did not distribute evenly as it was written. It is difficult to see some letters on an original document so you can well imagine it is virtually impossible to read them on the microfilm. The govern ment also claims that the copy books kept by the Land Registry Office are a more complete record. But they are by definition copies, NOT the original information. In many instances, the full information contained on the document was never copied out in full in the copy book. For example, the copy book might contain simply the name of a witness to a sale but failed to record that the witness lived in a distant place whereas the original document tells you where the witness was from. You know from your own research that the witness was a family member.

Which record would you rather preserve - the copy or the actual original record?

Volunteers are needed to help inventory records in our Land Registry Offices before any decision is made to dispose of them or scatter them around the province. By conducting an inventory we will know which records should go to local heritage groups, and we will have a central inventory of which records were taken by which heritage groups and when. If some records end up in the Provincial Archives (where they could end up in dead storage and unavailable to the public), there will, at least, be a record of what went to the archives.

For more information on attempts to save these records, see "Ontario Land Records Crisis."

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