Federation Of Family History Societies

Ancestry.ca and FamilySearch Announce Agreement to Digitize and Index Existing Canadian Censuses

Initiative provides online access to a comprehensive collection of Canadian censuses

Toronto, ON—Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading online family history Web site, is pleased to announce a joint initiative with FamilySearch International, a nonprofit organization that maintains one of the world's largest repositories of genealogical resources. The joint initiative will allow the organizations to improve online access to a comprehensive collection of Canadian censuses.

As part of the agreement, FamilySearch will digitize and index Canadian census records that Ancestry.ca has acquired. These digitized and indexed records will then be made available to Ancestry.ca members on the company’s Web site, and the indexes will be available for free to the public at FamilySearch.org. The images will be free to qualified FamilySearch members and all FamilySearch family history centers.

FamilySearch will deliver images and indexes to Ancestry.ca for censuses from 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1916, to launch online in 2009. In return, Ancestry.ca will provide indexes to FamilySearch for the 1891 and 1901 censuses.

Maggie Loughran
Joint Administrator, Federation of Family History Societies