Lookups at Archives of Ontario (Toronto)?

Question

Hi all,

I was just wondering if there is anyone who would be willing to help me with some lookups at the reading room of the Archives of Ontario at York University in Toronto. I tried contacting them directly but it seems they don't do lookups.

It would involve going through some census records on film rolls that aren't available online.

Thanks very much!

Answer 1

If you are looking for censuses, then those are found with Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / Library and Archives Canada (BAC-LAC for short).  Which years are you looking for?  Realize that these are not all viewable due to privacy laws for more recent ones.

bac-lac collections search of censuses engine

Comments

Hi Danielle,

I am looking for a man confirmed to be in Elizabethtown Twp, Leeds starting from about 1820 until the 1851 census and beyond. The period I'm interested in is between the 1821 and 1839 censes that I was able to find transcriptions of online. According to a database there are censes extant on film roll MS-2556 for the years 1825-1832 and 1834-1838, these are the ones I'm interested in having someone look at. Also the 1842 census for Elizabethtown exists on film roll M-5908 but is not available online, so I'd love to find this census record as well.

I did contact Library and Archives Canada about this and it took them something like 6 months to respond and then they told me they didn't have the film roll I was looking for, that it was at Archives of Ontario.

Thank you much, if you know of any of these records being available online then please let me know, I would be grateful.

J

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Some of those early Elizabethtown area censuses are available on line, I just need to remember where I found them. It might have been on one of the local history websites.

My DH has lots of family who settled in that area, and I do have early records for some of them.

I'm on my way out for a while, but will take a look this evening.

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Great, thanks! Let me know if you are able to find anything.

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Who are you looking for?

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I am looking for Roger Bissell, sometimes spelled Bissle/Bissel/Bisell in the records. He was a shoemaker born in the US sometime in the early 1780's. I believe he is the same Roger Bissell who lived at Germantown, NY in 1810. He does not appear at Elizabethtown in 1819 but does appear in 1821 so he arrived there sometime between those two censes. According to the 1848 census he did not own any land. He had a wife, one son and one daughter (both born between 1800-1810) in 1821 but by 1839 he was living alone, so presumably his wife died or left during that period, and also his son and daughter left his household. My ultimate aim is to try and figure out the identities of his wife daughter and son, right now I'm just fishing for clues about where to look.

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Right now I can't find where I got the records that I have for another Elizabethtown, Leeds and Grenville family. They could possibly have come from a descendant, it was a long time ago.

A google search produced these results which may or may not be of use ,or you may have already done this research   I have often found useful information from local historical societies , many of them will do research for a fee. 

https://leedsandgrenville.ogs.on.ca/

http://www.grenvillecountyarchives.ca/genealogical-files.html has a Bissell file

http://my.tbaytel.net/bmartin/wsmart.htm, Bissell marriages includes 10 instances of the name Bissell

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ontariohistoricalsociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Ontario-History-1904-v5.pdf 

https://www.lynmuseum.ca/2019/06/11/genealogical-archival-boxes/ includes Bissell 

https://archive.org/details/leedsgrenville00leavuoft/page/n9/mode/1up?q=Bissell

search doesn’t work but a James Bissell is listed on page 94 and 95, there may be more listings, it would require reading through the book

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.seeley-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2016-aug.pdf

seems to be Bissell family history in Bloxwich, Staffordshire, England

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ontariohistoricalsociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Ontario-History-1904-v5.pdf

OHS papers and records Volume 5 

http://www.rogerbissell.com/id21j.html maybe be junk

a David Bissell is listed on UEL website

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Augusta,_Ontario, about Bisselltown, Ontario and Bissell Cemetery which is located along the Fifth Concession on Lot 34 near Algonquin, Ontario. 

Another option is Facebook, sometimes it can be useful

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Thank you very much for spending the time to look all of this up. I will definitely reach out to the Leeds/Grenville Genealogical Society and see if they can help. I've already done a lot of research on the David & Joseph Bissell families who lived at Augusta; right now I'm looking specifically for information on Roger Bissell in Elizabethtown who is seemingly from a different branch of the family.