Canadian census records

Ancesty.com's database and images for the 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 census title matches the Library and Archives of Canada's (LAC) titles for these census years. The special census' of 1906 and 1916 the Ancestry.com and LAC database titles don't match. Ancestry titles them 1906 or 1916 Canada Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. While LAC titles them Census of the Northwest Provinces, 1906 and Census of the Prairie Provinces, 1916. As seen here: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/census/index-e.html

Ancestry cites the original data as "Census returns for 1916 Census of Prairie Provinces." Statistics of Canada Fonds, Record Group 31-C-1. LAC microfilm T-21935, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. The LAC catalogue title is: Census returns for 1916 Census of Prairie Provinces. As seen here:

http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=3800575&rec_nbr_list=3800575,2110594,4155147,4146081,4146011

If I use the LAC images I would use their database title, and if I use Ancestry's I would use their title.  My question: Should the LAC catalogue title be added to my Ancestry citations and which title the one LAC lists in their catalogue or all the information that Ancestry lists? At this point I have chosen to use the LAC catalogue title without all the extra stuff Ancestry has listed.

1916 Census of Canada, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, population schedule, Saskatchewan, Assiniboia district 6, Enumeration District (ED) 2, p. 09 (penned), dwelling 92, family 96, Daniel Joseph Rooney household; digital image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2011); citing LAC microfilm publication, Census returns for 1916 Census of the Prairie Provinces, RG31 roll T-21935.

Thank you for any thoughts or comments.

Ann 

Submitted byEEon Sat, 08/04/2012 - 16:09

Ann, on the overall principle here, your instincts are good. If you use Ancestry's images, accessed through Ancestry's database, you need to identify the database the way Ancestry identifies it, in order to make relocation possible. You should then add the source Ancestry cites, which you have done above. If you copy Ancestry's citation of its source exactly, you would want to put that source-of-the-source citation in quotation marks, given that you would be quoting. If your auxiliary research at the LAC site indicates that the census has a different identification in Canada, it would also be good to add a note providing the Canadian ID.

The bottom line here is that, in your working notes, you can add any and all additional information you feel would help you in your research.

EE should also offer one bit of finessing to the citation that you drafted. Italics are used for the title of a publication. The census itself is not published. The LAC film is not published. It's preservation film. Therefore, it's title is not italicized.

The exact words from Ancestry that you have copied represent the title of Ancestry's database. When we cite a database at a website, that's the online equivalent of citing a chapter in a book or an article in a journal. The title that's italicized is the title of the larger publication (the book, the journal, or the website--i.e., Ancestry.com). The title of the smaller element within that publication (the chapter, the article, or the database), would be placed in quotation marks.

See the example of the Canadian census accessed through an Ancestry database at EE 6.50 (p. 300).