Interesting find on "Upper Canada" official documents

+3 votes
210 views
I have been working on adding a rather infamous part of my family with the surname Whitesell; full of cheating, lying, bigamy and other fun in just the more recent history. Further back, my line comes from a Whitesell that fled the newly formed United States after heavily supporting the English, leaving his parents and all of his other siblings back in New Jersey, taking his wife and their young daughter to Ontario.

In order to document these illustrious people, I have been doing some research and I kept finding the titles of documents to be "Upper Canada XXX"; things such as census (1842 Upper Canada Census for example) and land documents such as "Upper Canada Land Petitions" and several other. Being curious as to just how far north my ancestor went, I pulled open google maps and looked for the area where he was last reported to have lived; Elgin, Ontario.

Imagine my absolute astonishment to find that in spite of Aaron Whitesell being documented in several "Upper Canada" documents, to be living lower in latitude than Minneapolis at essentially the furthest southern part of Canada. How does that work!!!???!!!
in The Tree House by Saphyre Rogers-Berry G2G6 Mach 4 (49.6k points)

3 Answers

+7 votes
 
Best answer

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Canada. "Upper Canada" was the name for what eventually became the province of Ontario, while "Lower Canada" was what eventually became the province of Quebec. This has nothing to do with north-south; rather, "Upper Canada" was farther up the St. Lawrence River.

by Living Geschwind G2G6 Mach 9 (91.6k points)
selected by Angela Cortner
+1 vote

I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ontario was also known as Upper Canada and Canada West (depending on the year) before July 1, 1867 (when Canada was formed.) Toronto is located at about 43.6° N, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada is located at about 43.1° N, and Pelee Island, Ontario, Canada is located at about 41.7° N.

by A. Creighton G2G6 Pilot (951k points)
+2 votes
It is surprising to many people who think of Canada as the 'great white north' to realise that the southernmost part of Canada,  Pelee Island, Ontario is slightly further south at 41.7 N than the northern state boundary of California which is 42 N.

Toronto is also on the same latitude as Florence, Italy.

The Canada U.S. border is 49 N across the prairie provinces but much further south in the eastern provinces
by M Ross G2G6 Pilot (869k points)

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