Immigration has played a significant part of Canada’s growth and history. With the exception of the Indigenous peoples, everyone in the country today is an immigrant or descended from immigrants.
Canada’s two major railways were literally the engines that made it possible for immigrants to settle in Western Canada.
The archival records of the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) form the second largest collection at Library and Archives Canada (LAC).
CN’s archives include records from its division, the Canadian National Land Settlement Association, and here’s the part that will interest genealogists. More than 25,000 immigrants were assisted by the association.
The association’s records contain official documents created by CN to promote immigration and colonization in Canada, a program that also had significant negative impacts on First Nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation.
LAC has specially digitized many pages from the association’s archives, covering the period from 1925 to 1963.
Transcription challenge
To transcribe these records, LAC has issued a Co-Lab challenge.
By participating in the Co-Lab challenge, you can help to make the files of these people searchable in our research tool. All of the content that you transcribe, translate, describe or identify will be accessible within 24 hours to those seeking to discover more about their roots.
LAC Archivist Andrew Elliott said, “The personal records of immigrants are particularly interesting. They include an application form indicating the nationality, language, religion and age of the person and their family members; identity cards; documents indicating services provided to the family, including the name of the shipping company and the ship on which they came to Canada; receipts; records of their place of settlement in Canada; and miscellaneous correspondence. It should be noted that in the 1920s and 1930s, many immigrants came from Eastern Europe, particularly the Ukraine.”
Mr. Elliott wrote a very informative blog post about the association’s records. He wrote that since the censuses for the 1930s have not yet been released, “the information provided in the CNSLA reports will be, for some years to come, the only information available as to where the immigrants came from and where they settled.”
