Census of Canada 1921 available for free at Ancestry.ca

In one of those P3 (public-private partnership) deals, the first phase in the release of the 1921 Census of Canada was announced by the Library and Archives Canada on August 9, 2013. Here's how it reads:

Canadians can now browse the 1921 Census data of the Canadian population, free of charge on Ancestry.ca.
The 1921 Census includes 197,529 images; it is therefore a massive electronic file to prepare and make accessible. Once it is fully indexed, this census will be the largest source of Canadian genealogical information online.
Researchers can explore the 197,529 pages of information through an index of districts and sub-districts. Ancestry.ca will also take the extra step of indexing 8.8 million names, addresses and other information for a searchable database, and developing advanced search tools to go along with it. Canadians will only be required to pay for the extra convenience of doing advanced searches from the comfort of their home. Ancestry.ca will assume the costs associated with this work and will offer a choice of free or paid access.

• Free access will be possible in person at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and through hundreds of subscribing libraries across Canada. 
• Free access to raw census records will be available online. 
• Paid access will only be necessary if someone wants the extra convenience of doing advanced searches from home.

Individuals can make the most of their visit in Library and Archives Canada’s reading room in Ottawa by preparing in advance and consulting Preparing for a Visit or viewing the Orientation Services for Clients at 395 Wellington video or reading the blog post, The Top Five Things You Need to Know Before You Visit.

Canadians can access censuses taken before 1921 on Library and Archives Canada’s Census webpage.

Library and Archives Canada places of Census of Manitoba, 1870 online

The Library and Archives Canada has placed the Census of Manitoba, 1870 online. According to its news blurb of July 11, 02013,

This census was taken shortly after Manitoba joined Confederation.
This census provides the names of more than 12,200 individuals living in Manitoba at that time and contains information such as age, marital status, place of birth, religion, race and name of the father.

You can search the census by keywords, surname, given names and age.

Footnote.com now part of Ancestry.com

Having grown its database of digitized historical documents over the past four years and based on a successful use-pay model that offered some parts of its database for free, Footnote.com announced on October 21, 02010 that it's been acquired by Ancestry.com as of that date. According to the announcement, "The plan is to continue to run Footnote.com the way we have always run Footnote.com — continuing to do what we believe is best for our customers, our business and our brand." I wonder though how long that will last under Ancestry.com's ownership. The announcement also provided these statistics: "Footnote.com started with only 5 million historical documents and today we have nearly 70 million searchable documents, over 1 million members, nearly 100,000 Footnote Pages, and over half million annotations added."Quite an accomplishment, but let's not forget that some of those records were provided through partnership arrangements with archives such as the National Archives and Records Administration in the United States, who therefore also deserve some credit. I hope that Ancestry.com will honor the agreements that were struck by Footnote.com with organizations such as NARA.

Oprah gets archives and goes genealogical

As noted by a BC archivist on the ARCAN-L mailing list (02010 03 09), today's Oprah Show looked at celebrities and their family histories. There are other links you can explore about some of these individuals, including former Friends star Lisa Kudrow who happens to be one of the executive producers of the American reality series Who Do You Think You Are?, which is based on a BBC TV program of the same name. With Oprah's interest in archives, can fame and fortune for archivists be far behind?

New Digital Holocaust Collection from Footnote.com and the U.S. National Archives

Some details about a new digital Holocaust Collection launched on September 29, 02009 by Footnote.com and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration are available on Gary Price's blog The Resource Shelf.

Census of Canada, 1891, database with digitized census schedules released

On February 10, 02009 the Library and Archives Canada announced the release of the Census of Canada, 1891, the last of the publicly available census schedules. You can search this database by personal name and several other fields and then view the original digitized schedule as either an Adobe Acrobat PDF page or a JPEG image. The project was accomplished with the assistance of Ancestry.ca. A novel feature and one more archives should adopt is the inclusion of a descriptive record correction suggestion feature.