Historical Records Of 600,000 Canadian WWI Heroes Now Online

The following announcement was written by The Generations Network, the parent company of Ancestry.ca:

600,000 records of our World War One heroes, including famous Canadians - John McCrae, Tommy Douglas and Frederick Banting

(Toronto, ON – November 5, 2008)  Between 1914-1918, more than 600,000 Canadian men, most untrained civilians, braved foreign soil to join the Allied Forces in an effort to restore peace and freedom to the world, with more than 60,000 making the ultimate sacrifice.

Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading online family history website, honours those men with the Soldiers of the First World War, 1914 - 1918, which contains the original records, fully searchable, of more than 598,000 Attestation Papers of enlisted soldiers.

An Attestation Paper was the first document a soldier signed before entering the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). In many cases, these may be the only surviving record of the enlistment of many Canadian soldiers who fought in World War One.

Attestation Papers provide a range of details about the enlistee including place of birth, age, physical description and next of kin. Some also include valuable information about their lives before the war, such as their occupation, marital status and residence.

Karen Peterson, Marketing Director, Ancestry.ca, comments: “Military records are invaluable to any family history enthusiast wishing to trace the military career of their ancestors and what makes this collection particularly significant is its sheer size, and also the rich personal details to be found in individual records.

“With Remembrance Day approaching, this collection reminds us of the sacrifices and incredible hardships all Canadians endured during The Great War.”

The struggle of World War One involved virtually the whole country and made enormous demands on the Canadian people, whether they were involved in the actual fighting or remained on the home front to work in industry or farming to support the war effort.

Comments

[Christine]

It's great that this is accessible through Ancestry now but it has been available through the Canadian Genealogy Centre (free of charge) for a long time now.

[Tom]

I can not find it on the ancestry website?

[Jeanne Bunting]

And done with Ancestry's usual attention to accuracy and detail! Ernest Martin Attersley appears as Attersby and living in Shawa where it should be Oshawa, and I could find no facility for adding an 'alternative name'.

It was all correct on the free Canadian Genealogy Centre site.

[LDrewitz]

Can someone post a link to both sites? Thanks!

[M. Diane Rogers]

To search the free Canadian Soldiers of the First World War database, go to the Canadian Genealogy Centre, Library and Archives Canada (LAC): http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-909.006-e.html
There is much more there - all free. Always check LAC first for Canadian material.
This is an index to a database of images of attestation papers *usually 2 pages, sometimes more than one attestation for an individual. To order copies of the individual's whole file, see the research information with the free index.
So far I don't see that TNG has anything additional at the ancestry pay website. Not quite sure yet why the release says 600,000 records and 600,000 men (not the same thing necessarily). And, the LAC index includes nurses and chaplains, as well as soldiers. Perhaps TGN doesn't include the women and the chaplains?

[Elizabeth Lapointe]

The Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa started scanning the Attestation Papers in 1996. They were one of the first scanned and indexed transcripts to be put on the Internet when the Canada Genealogy Centre first started in 2003.

I would suggest that anyone looking for background on the Attestation Papers and other important information on soldiers of the First World War take a look at my blog at

The 90th anniversary of Canada's role in the First World War is being featured in the blog—which started yesterday—and will go on until November 11th.

Diane, you may be right about the database!

[Elizabeth Lapointe]

The Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa started scanning the Attestation Papers in 1996. They were one of the first scanned and indexed transcripts to be put on the Internet when the Canada Genealogy Centre first started in 2003.

I would suggest that anyone looking for background on the Attestation Papers and other important information on soldiers of the First World War take a look at my blog at

The 90th anniversary of Canada's role in the First World War is being featured in the blog—which started yesterday—and will go on until November 11th.

Diane, you may be right about the database!

[Elizabeth Lapointe]

The blog address is http://www.genealogycanada.blogspot.com

Sorry, it did not show the first time.