Category: Prince Edward Island Research Assistance

Categories: Canada Research Assistance | Prince Edward Island

WikiTree is a friendly community of genealogists and family historians. Members who have added themselves to these research assistance categories are willing to help others with specific questions and requests in Prince Edward Island. Visit their profile to contact them and find out how they are able to help.

• Wikipedia and other sources provide general information about PEI. This may provide useful context for your research
• Prince Edward Island Public Archives Online (PARO) explains the information available through the provincial government, and how to access it.
  • PAROSearch gives you access to baptismal, marriage and death records, and the collections of photographs and other records (think land, court, etc) that are maintained by the province.
  • Memory PEI describes holdings of the provincial archives. Some of the information is available online, for the rest may find a good excuse to make a trip to Charlottetown, taste some mussels, golf at Crowbush, add to your seaglass collection, and discover a little more about your ancestors!
• The University of Prince Edward Island houses the Island Archives, which includes newspapers, stories, maps and other useful information.
• The Island Register is a PEI-based genealogy page with maps, early census information and PEI Lineages - an index to secondary sources for over 1000 PEI families. Has transcriptions of passenger lists.
• The PEI Genealogical Society has useful resources, such as transcripts of P.E.I. cemetery information, and books on English, Irish and Scottish emigrants to the Island.
• Census information:
  • Census information gathered by the Acadians between 1728 and 1752; the first English census taken after the Acadian expulsion in 1767, and other useful census information related to early PEI is found on the Island Register
  • 1841 PEI conducted a census in 1841 (accessed through PARO above, images on Familysearch.org)
  • 1861 Census of Prince Edward Island is included in the 1861 Census of Canada on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website. Only Ancestry includes the Schedule 2, which includes a question on where household members were born. Head of household only.
  • 1871 Census of Prince Edward Island has been lost; only Lot summaries survived. Substitutions are the Index to the 1870 Commissioner of Public Land's Report in the Journal of the Legislative Assembly, Appendix S. PEI Genealogical Society, 1998; and Directories of Prince Edward Island on the Island Register, Canadiana.ca, Ancestry.com
  • After PEI joined Confederation in 1873, it began to participate in the Canadian Census. Library and Archives Canada has published the the Canadian Census 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911 and 1921. Click the year of the census, and start searching! I suggest using wildcards, as the spelling used for the census may not reflect the spelling used today, there are occasionally transcription errors, and my ancestors were often vague about their real age (yours made their own decisions!)
  • 1890 Roman Catholic Census of Prince Edward Island. Available on Islandlives.ca. Sometimes includes maiden name of wife.
• Military
  • Military Records for PEI ancestors are also found on Library and Archives Canada's website, including Colonial records, Loyalist information, the Personnel Records of the First World War, and those who were lost in WW11. Note that many Islanders served with the American army in World War 1.
  • Prince Edward Island Legion. Military Service Recognition booklets 1-16. Can be downloaded from their website, https://peilegion.com/projects/military-service-recognition-booklet
• Loyalists
  • Some of the Loyalists settled in PEI can be found in the United Empire Loyalist Directory. See also An Island Refuge by Orlo Jones and Doris Haslam.
• FamilySearch's Historical Records may also provide useful records for PEI families.
• Probate
  • Early Prince Edward Island Probate Records, 1786-1850 by Linda Jean Nicholson.2004
  • Probate records, 1807-1958; indexes, 1786-2000, images on familysearch.org
• Marriage
  • PEI Marriage Registers, searchable database on Familysearch.org and Ancestry, 1832-1888. Coverage can be spotty, although ministers, priests, and JPs were required to report marriages to the Province, they were often late and records may have been lost
  • PEI Marriages, PEI PARO Collections Database. Includes some licenses and bonds pre 1888, and licenses and registrations after 1888.
  • License Cash Books of the Colonial Secretary of Prince Edward Island 1787-1805, 1812-1813 transcribed and indexed by Elizabeth A. Glen CG(C), PEI Genealogical Society
  • License Cash Book - on microfilm at PARO, covers roughly 1820s and 1830s
  • Prince Edward Island church records : COLLECTION RECORD, 1777-1985. images on Familysearch.org, searchable on Ancestry.com. Mainly Protestant, covers two of the older churches in Charlottetown, Trinity and St. Paul's, and Church of England in St. Eleanor's from 1823-; PEI Catholic Church records are on digitized microfilm at a Family History Centre
  • Presbyterian Church, Richmond Parish. Marriages in the 1820s and 1830s, on microfilm at PARO
  • Century of Immigration, Marriage and Death Records from Prince Edward Island Newspapers 1780-1900, by Leland Currie. 2019. Contact the author at ballantynetrail@live.ca
• Biographies
  • PEI Legislative Documents Online. Biographies of Members of the Legislative Assembly. https://www.peildo.ca/ . Note: if your relative was a teacher or did road work on PEI, you might find information on their work in gov. docs.
  • Outstanding Women of Prince Edward Island. Zonta Club of Charlottetown.
  • A Century of Women. Zonta Club of Charlottetown
• Past and Present of Prince Edward Island, by Warburton and McKinnon. c. 1906 Digitized, on Islandlives.ca website and others.
• Maps and Atlases
  • Islandimagined.ca website for digitized maps of the lots of PEI, many with names of owners; Meacham's 1880 Atlas of PEI, which includes a directory; Cummins Atlas, c. 1928 which has Rural Directories for most lots - includes name of occupant, wife (sometimes with maiden name), and children; occupation
  • Lake Map of Prince Edward Island, c. 1863 on the Island Register. Matches 1861 Census to some extent.
• Add your sources here!

Members you could contact:

• Laurie Giffin is located on the West Coast, I can share my experience researching PEI families, but not available to review local PEI resources
• Andre Cain's special interest is with the Cain and MacDonald families from Indian River, Glenwood/Pierre Jaques River. To a certain degree I can help with the MacIsaacs from Indian River.
• Jane Dyment is not on the Island, but has considerable experience in researching Prince County families. Provided research assistance to the book "Those Splendid Girls, the Heroic Service of Prince Edward Island Nurses in the Great War".
• Add your name here!

This page was last modified 21:14, 30 November 2022. This page has been accessed 319 times.