Is anyone else having trouble with census searches at LAC? [closed]

Question

Hi there: I am recently having major trouble searching for a Canadian Census record at LAC, Library and Archives Canada. The record in question is the 1891 Canada Census Quebec 172 Montreal Est 79 Ste. Marie Ward Page 20 Lines 2-5 for the family of Antoine Lapierre and Georgina Lapierre nee Labossiere. This is the record at FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW57-S5G They do not have the image and I usually like to link to the LAC images. I have found the record at Ancestry and have tried to search for anyone on the two pages and LAC cannot find any of them. I have tried wild cards, names that are quite clear, give age and birth date ranges and still no results. Is something wrong with the 1891 records?

Thanks, Jim

Comments

I was exported to Canada from England.  I cannot find Canadian records for my own children, spouses and such.  I tried during the Source-a-Thon and I have many subscriptions.  You have to pay for Federal records here.  It is not all free because the time line is only a couple of centuries with us emigrants.  I can figure something better out, contact the Universities, they are the best resource.

Answer 1

Yes, this has happened before with bac-lac. I have not been able to access the census images. The linking does not work. And it appears that the image does not show on any profile where you have previously posted a link. Bummer. I love using bac-lac. I’ll be sending a strongly worded email to Justin Trudeau if it isn’t fixed soon. Lol.

Comments

Bac-lac changed their website last year. Are these links that don't work for the old website? The new website doesn't use the same item ID numbers. But if you have the image ID for the census page you can create a link using this url:

https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=IMAGEID

Answer 2

Familysearch has done a very bad job with the 1891 and 1851 census.

This works best: https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Census/Index

There are some duplicate records so be careful about that.

https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=census&IdNumber=28033623

Answer 3

census page 20 for 1891 gives me Antoine Manseau dit Lapierre and his wife Georgina with 2 children.  I presume this is the right couple, you didn't link a profile.  Wasn't hard to find.

Note that the district number 172 is showing as Montréal-Est, sub-district 79.  FS's index, if you click on the link they have on their page, leads to a page that says it came from Ancestry that calls it Ste Marie ward, and has incorrect film number.

Answer 4

I have had a couple of times found pages that were missing indexes on the LAC website. Did you know that Ancestry and LAC usually use the same image numbers? You can create a link directly to the image ID using this url:

https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=IMAGEID

I found the entry on Ancestry, right click and opened the image in a new tab, and copied the image ID (right before the "?"). Here is the link to the image at LAC:

https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=30953_148211-00396

You can also use the image ID to do an advanced search at LAC and see the entries from a particular page. Here is the index entry for Georgina:

https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=census&IdNumber=28033623

Edit to add: if you have WikiTree Sourcer, Rob recently added LAC as a supported site. You can now easily search for the same census entry at Ancestry/FamilySearch/LAC. (Sometimes when it searches, the district/sub district names are not the same at LAC, so if you don't get any search results you can just click the "x" in the filters for the district names and it should give you some results).

Comments

Thank you to everyone who answered this question. Perhaps I did not explain the problem very well. I have been using the LAC census records for a long time and am fully aware of how to use the new search engine. That is what appears to be the problem for the past few days and is still an issue this morning.

What I am saying is even if I know exactly how to spell the person's name, know their correct age and birth year and allow for a small range of ages and years, the LAC search engine will not find the record. I know the data is correct as I use FamilySearch or Ancestry to look at the actual image.

I have tried this across numerous records from 1871 - 1911 recently.

I eventually can find the record by using a "cheat method".

I have a large collection of LAC census records for my relatives and I just find one in the same District, then vary the image number until I get the record I want. To reiterate, I believe there is currently something wrong with the LAC census search engine.

Thanks, Jim

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Thank you Jim. Well said. I have been using only the “new” search method since June 2023. I am also not looking for a work-around solution. I expect the Government of Canada website to work. This happened a while back, and then it was fine.  And ✌to everyone who tried to help.

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Jim, their engine is fairly new, and encounters glitches once in a while.

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Thanks, Danielle. I am using the work around to get the image number from Ancestry then pick up the LAC image.

Best wishes, Jim

Answer 5

Bonjour tout le monde! It’s working today!

Comments

Thanks for the update. Jim