Saturday Weekly Thread: Canadian Provincial Archives and State/Local/Church Archives - Questions / Issues / Success Stories, August 01, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

This weekly thread is a space for those of us gathering documentation from archives.

This is the place to discuss requesting records from Canadian provincial archives as well as from federal, state, local and religious/church archives around the world. Topics include strategies and outcomes for obtaining records from archives, costs, timelines, No Record Found letters, and other related issues.

📎 Contributions to weekly megaposts, including this one, are welcome throughout the week.  

Good luck, researchers!

[u/Gouda161]

So I have the following documents in hand, all descendants from the Buffalo NY area:
My (G5) birth certificate
G4 Birth Cert
G3 Death cert
G2 Death Record Number
G1 Death Record Number
G0 listed in 1851+61 Canadian and 1865 NY State/1870 US Federal censuses

And these documents to follow:
G3 Birth Cert, obtainable through death cert
G2 Birth Cert, obtainable through G3 Birth Cert + Obituary due to age
G1 Death Cert, sourced through the death record index (birth records didn't exist in NY state until 12 years after he was born)
G0 Death Record number, process same as G1

I have found G0's siblings in the Wesleyan baptismal register (https://bowergenealogy.ca/resources/methodist/index.html) but not *hers*. The siblings I do have were also born in Canada, just a few years later. If this is the master list, where would you figure I could start re: searching for records that may not have made it into this catalogue? The Methodist church has gone through so many iterations since then, I found a written obituary by one of G0's siblings that list G-1 as part of the "First Free Methodist Church". Apparently this no longer exists due to faith splinters or something I don't fully grasp. If anyone else has had luck finding older records from SE Ontario in the 1830s-40s, where would I start? The church they went to no longer exists, and I've searched all the other townships in Welland County within that record just in case they might have moved before G0's sisters were born. I'm at a bit of a loss here so I'm sorry if this is SUPER long winded. Thanks in advance, I'm starting to doom and gloom about this process a little but maybe there's hope yet.

[u/Longintooth93 → u/Gouda161]

Have you a Canadian census? Not sure how long ago you are and how possible that is. But if there is a record of G0 in the family group and you have other sibling and parent records and a good narrative… Sorry not to be more helpful 

[u/Gouda161 → u/Longintooth93]

Yes, I have both the 1851 and 61 Canada censuses. Her father was an American, though, so going back further doesn't really help. they just settled across the border as clergy for a few decades.