HERITAGE P-INdex

PROPERTY INDEX - Discover Ontario's municipal boundaries circa Confederation (1867-75). Historical Maps and Directories reveal thousands of families who first 'located' on land parcels and towns in this early period.


IN 1825, Ontario's colonial settlements were separated from Lower-Canada (Quebec), and re-arranged into Counties and Districts. Boundary changes are summarized in the Upper Canada Land Grants project.


NAMES of earliest settlers, transcribed from maps and gazetteers can be searched Province-Wide or at Township pages. The locations of initial land grants are essential clues for genealogical research!

 

Looking for an ancestor or location?

To get started with the MAPS, click anywhere on the Google map above.
When a County label pops up, click on it to learn more about the County and its Townships.
 
Search Database

Surname Search




heritagePIN PROJECT DATABASES | Project Goals and Progress




HeritagePIN has a number of Name Transcription Projects on the go since 2008. The time period of study is Pre-Confederation (1867). Since Ontario's civil records program took some years to fully implement, this time period has been extended to include Ontario's documented inhabitants prior to the mid-1870's.

Transcribed surnames are searchable at each Township's page




Beta





 
MAPS | project

I had been able to photograph several of the (brittle) Pre-Confederation maps at various universities and archives, and by 2016 the University of Toronto has made images available ONLINE for many more!

The names in these databases have been transcribed by me personally, and include names from the inset town maps, and indexes of subscribers, located in the margins of each map.

 
DIRECTORIES & GAZETTEERS | project


Likewise, with historical directories, names have been transcribed by eye, not by OCR (conversion to text). They include those entries for individuals living in towns and cities.

 
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES


Where maps and directories are sparse for a township, or for an early time period, the Databases are supplemented with record-sets * that show names and Concession/Lot locations *. These include early Land Grant/Patents, and Agricultural Census returns.