FamilySearch Adds Historical Canada 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces

Contributed By FamilySearch

  • 26 February 2019

A view of Mount Rundle in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, from the Vermilion Lakes. Now people with Canadian roots can easily find information about their ancestors who might have lived in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta using the 1926 Canadian census of the Prairie provinces.

FamilySearch International and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) have partnered to publish online the 1926 Canadian census of the Prairie provinces. The free database provides a searchable index of 2 million names linked to 45,000 digital pages of the historical regional Canadian census.

LAC provided the digitized images, and FamilySearch created the index. People with Canadian roots can now easily find information about their ancestors who might have lived in the provinces of Manitoba (639,056), Saskatchewan, (820,738), and Alberta (607,599).

About the 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces

Since 1871, a Canada-wide census has been held every 10 years. However, during the early part of the 20th century, the population of the Prairie provinces expanded rapidly, so there was a need for more frequent population counts in those provinces. It was decided to conduct a census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in June 1906 (between the Canada-wide censuses), and every 10 years thereafter.

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