This article was published in the Fall 2024 Ontario Genealogical Society journal Families.

County maps in pre-Confederation Canada West were the focus of an accompanying article in the Fall 2024 issue of Families titled Tremaine’s Map Establishment. Below are some considerations for the use of those and any other county maps as genealogical evidence. The county maps may be primary sources but care must be taken while using them as the information on them is at best secondary and the evidence is a mix of direct and indirect.

The cartographic details were normally taken from pre-existing or commissioned surveys of the counties and their constituent townships and have been found to be quite accurate in most cases. Some of the genealogical details on the maps include names of settlers placed as labels on their lots, business directories as insets, supplementary maps and vignettes of homes, businesses, public institutions and landmarks. Each will be considered below.

Names on Lots

The name information on rural areas of the counties was usually more valuable than in the urban villages, towns and cities. One study has estimated that lot sizes above 22 acres were most likely to have a settler name inscribed on the map. In some cases initials were used if space was limited on the map. This introduces an obvious coverage bias toward the more affluent land-owning members of society who had bigger farms. It is worth considering how those names were sourced. Some names would come from the land surveys themselves and other details from the map salesmen who would be going door-to-door soliciting orders. A final step for the more thorough publishers would be to cross reference the names to township tax assessment records. It is possible that Land Record Office indexes could also have been used. There have been some studies of the accuracy of the names on Ontario county maps with quite high accuracy rates noted. The Tremaine maps have been found to be better than some of the others in this respect. The author did an analysis of the landowner information on the Township of Pelham section of the 1862 Tremaine Counties of Lincoln and Welland map and found that over 95% of the names were reconcilable to land registry office data.[1] This is an impressive finding but was likely skewed by the fact that Pelham was sparsely populated and easy for the map salesmen to solicit in person. Errors often related to simple spelling mistakes, not surprising given that each name had to be transposed onto the map from underlying sources by a technician likely not familiar with the township.

There have been at least two substantial efforts to create indices for the names included on the county maps. The first was published on the Ontario Heritage P-INdex website –  https://ontario.heritagepin.com/ and the other more recent effort is the Ontario Historical County Maps Project – https://utoronto.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8cc6be34f6b54992b27da17467492d2f . Both are subject to the vagaries of the accuracy of the underlying maps and transcription challenges.

The name evidence on most of the county maps is therefore a hybrid of direct and indirect sources.

Town Directories

Most of the maps contained insets with business directories for the principal urban centres in the county. These entries often included tradesmen, retailers and professionals. There was an element of “pay to display” involved which means that these were not as comprehensive as the stand-alone farmers and business directories of the day which would have been considered a better use of advertising funds.

Supplementary Maps

Some of the later county maps contained additional images of smaller scale maps of all of Canada West or larger scale images of individual towns. The 1864 Tremaine County of Elgin map contained a map of Canada West and also insets for all of the principal towns. The 1860 Tremaine County of York map had a large inset for Toronto on a much larger scale than the whole county.

Vignettes

One of the most engaging elements of the county maps are the vignettes which represent settler residences, businesses, public buildings and occasionally landmarks.[2] Subscribers would pay to have the images of the first three of these categories included. They were normally displayed around the border of the maps and ranged from just a few to 34 on the 1861 County of Waterloo map. In at least some of the early maps the Tremaine organization utilized ambrotype photographs to secure images while in other cases they were sketches. There is evidence that the publishers took some liberties by enhancing the images to curry favour with their subscribers. Examples are the pretty picket fences fronting some residences and the carefully positioned livestock and horses. A study of ten copies of the 1862 Tremaine Counties of Lincoln and Welland map by the author also identified that the selection of Vignettes and Town Directories was not always the same on each version of the map. Several copies of this map have different combinations of images or tables swapped in or out. The reason is not evident. A study by Lisa of the Ontario Heritage Pin website [3] also identified significant name and other details differences between two different copies of the 1861 Tremaine County of Middlesex map.

Other information

The maps contain many other interesting details. A prospectus for one of the county maps indicated that it would exhibit the Harbours, Rivers, Railways, Canals, Mill Streams, Mills, Manufacturers, Queen’s Highways, Macadamised, Plank and Gravel Roads, the City, Towns, Villages, Post-offices; the location of the Township Halls, Country Churches and Schools; Township Boundaries, Concessions, Side-lines, Farm and Wild Lots, with generally Owners names.[4] An excellent 48 page booklet by Betty H. Kidd discusses how some of these details can enhance your genealogical studies.[5]

In summary, county maps can be a valuable and generally reliable supporting resource for those studying the settlement history of Canada West.

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[1] This study considered accurate initials and minor transcription errors and spelling mistakes (10% of the total) as reconcilable differences.

[2] The 1862 Tremaine Counties of Lincoln and Welland map contains Vignettes of both the Brock Monument and Niagara Falls. Brock University Archives and Special Collections has created an informative website which profiles the Vignettes from this Lincoln and Welland map – https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/5029

[3] https://ontario.heritagepin.com/the-middlesex-co-1862-tremaine-map-two-versions/

[4] Prospectus of a Valuable Local Map and Directory, York Herald, 5 August 1859: 4, newspapers.com

[5] Betty H. Kidd, Using Maps in Tracing Your Family History (Ottawa: Ontario Genealogical Society, Ottawa Branch, Publication 74-14, 1975)