June 1st was an exciting day for genealogists since it was the release day of the 1931 Census by Library and Archives Canada. Canadian law doesn’t release the personal information from any census until 92 years have passed. Since the last federal census was 1921, and there was a 1926 Census of the Prairie Provinces, this latest release was anxiously anticipated.

Early on the morning of the 1st I was disappointed to find the the census was NOT available. About an hour later it appeared on Library and Archives Canada. Now we all knew that this census was digitized but not yet indexed, which means you had to browse through the images. I had done my prep work and made a list of those people I wanted to find first, and where I thought they were living in 1931. Since most of my relatives were in western Canada, I made note of the district names and sub-district numbers from the 1926 Census.

I immediately found my Dad’s family Thomas Hogue and Emma Girardin in La Salle, Manitoba. All the family were listed, except for my Dad and his brother Joe. I wasn’t surprised as both of them would have been working for Canadian National Railway. They could have been anywhere in western Canada welding tracks.

But there was a wonderful surprise for me. On the same census page for La Salle, I found my Mom, Madeleine Vaillancourt, with her Mother, Father and one sister. I was never sure when the family had moved from Regina to La Salle.

And then the day went downhill. Did I mention how excited the genealogical community was to finally have access to this census? So much so that the Library and Archives Canada site started producing “can not load file” messages. Eventually it shut down completely.

Word quickly spread, thanks to researcher Ken McKinlay, that the database was available for free on Ancestry. Eventually, using the Ancestry site, I found my husband’s paternal and maternal grandparents and two of my Mom’s siblings.

Indexing may be finished by this fall and then we will be able to name search the records. Until then I will try and constrain myself from continuing to browse pages in the hope that I may find someone.

On the plus side, after having browsed 21 sub-districts I am delighted to say that all of them were clear copies with legible handwriting!

BTW the Library and Archives site is up and running again.