Blog Archives

Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors - Ancestry.com Resources

I am currently researching my Loyalist ancestors and I have found information in several different places, on-line, in published works, libraries and museums. First, I would lke to share some of my on line resources.
The Card Catalogue at Ancestry.com has many reference books such as:

  • Coldham, Peter Wilson. American Migrations 1765-1799: The lives, times, and families of colonial Americans who remained loyal to the British Crown before, during and after the Revolutionary War, as related in their own words and through their correspondence. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000.
  • PERSI is the largest and most widely-used subject index covering genealogy and local history periodicals written in English and French (Canada). The collection dates from approximately 1800. There are currently over 1.7 million searchable records and nearly 6,000 different periodicals, which library staffers at the Allen County Public Library have been compiling for over a decade. PERSI is widely recognized as essential for high-quality genealogy research.
  • Smith, Clifford Neal. British and German Deserters, Dischargees, and Prisoners of War Who May Have Remained in Canada anad the United States, 1774-1783. Part One and Part Two. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004.
  • Reid, William D. The Loyalists in Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada. Lambertville, NJ, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1973.
  • Births-deaths-marriages, Christian messenger. Hamilton, Ont.: Hamilton Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, 1960.
  • Ezra E. Eby. A biographical history of Waterloo township and other townships of the county: being a history of the early settlers and their descendants, mostly all of Pennsylvania Dutch origin: as also much other unpublished historical information chiefly of a local character, v. 1. Berlin [Kitchener, Ont.]: [s.n.], 1896.
  • Centennial Committee. The Old United Empire Loyalists List. Toronto, Canada: Rose Publishing Co., 1885.
  • United Empire Loyalists, Parts I-II Fraser, Alexander. [United Empire Loyalists]: Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario. Toronto, Canada: L. K. Cameron, 1905.
  • Chadwick, Edward Marion,. Ontarian families : genealogies of United-Empire-loyalists and other pioneer families of Upper Canada. Toronto: Rolph, Smith & Co., 1895-1898.
  • Ontario People 1796 - 1803 - transcribed and annotated by E.Keith Ftzgerald (I own this book)
  • A brief sketch of the county of Essex, in the province of Ontario, Canada: also a short history of the formation and growth of the town of Essex, with biographical sketches of some of the public men, descriptions of buildings &c., describing its climate, situation, resources, soil, productions, and advantages as a place of settlement. Essex, Ont.: J.E. Johnson, [1889?]
  • William Henry Egle, ed.. Journals and diaries of the war of the revolution with lists of officers and soldiers, 1775-1783. [Harrisburg, Pa.?]: [s.n.], 1893
  • Caniff, William. History of the Settlement of Upper Canada, With Special Reference to the Bay of Quinte. Toronto, Canada: Dudley & Burns, Printers, Victoria Hall, 1869.

There are also many church, county and family histories, too numerous to mention as well as genealogies, diaries and memoirs, military and court records, historical buildings, etc.This is a good place to start, but you need a subscription so I'm going to offer some free sites that I have found very helpful in my next post.

related posts:
Reasearching Your Loyalist Ancestors - UELAC
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors - Internet Archive
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors - Government Resources


Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Go Back

Comment