Saturday, January 20, 2018

Talbot Settlement and Survey Maps 1793-1849 Online!

January 2018 has been a GREAT month for genealogists wanting to access early Ontario Land records.

A new project to digitize Ontario land records by Family Search and the announcement of the first phase of the OnLand web portal (in alpha phase) are definitely worth watching as new records will be added throughout 2018.

Genealogists know that land records are a gold mine of information and one of the challenges is locating the property details for our Ontario ancestors.

An Online Ontario Land Records Trifecta!

The good news for folks with ancestors in south-western Ontario is that a third Ontario land record resource is now online!

The Elgin County Archives (in agreement with the Archives of Ontario's Digitization Loan Program), has completed a digitization project and published the following important records:
  • Archives of Ontario's Thomas Talbot fonds, F 501 (45 maps from 1802 to 1832, displaying early settlement grants and dates of occupation in the series of townships where Talbot controlled land allocation.)
  • Ministry of Natural Resources fonds, RG 1-470 (33 maps from 1796 to 1844, displaying early surveying efforts in approximately the same area, alongside names of settlers) 
If your ancestors lived in south-western Ontario between 1796 and 1844, these records would be well worth investigating.

My 3rd Great-Grandfather Denis Moynahan 
(1787-1885)
Was A Talbot Settler
My Essex county Moynahan ancestors were settled by Thomas Talbot in the early 1800s and I had learned this from a trip to the archives in the early 1980s.

The document below was one of my greatest finds back in those early days! It shows my 3rd great-grandfather Denis Moynahan land petition (spelled Minehan) dated 1847 but with information that Col. Thomas Talbot located him to 6 South Middle Rd., Maidstone (then known as Sandwich) in the year 1830!

One of the very first documents that I found at the Archives of Ontario (c. 1980)
I had several Moynahan ancestors who were part of the Talbot settlement and you can visit my previous posts here:
From my early research, I mapped out where all of the early Essex  county, Ontario Moynahans lived in relation to each other:

My hand drawn map of my early Essex county Moynahan ancestors

The Talbot Fonds

When I explored the Thomas Talbot fonds, F 501 online, I quickly confirmed my Moynahan ancestors in the Talbot Fonds index:
Source: 1824 Plan of the Townships of Maidstone, Rochester and Sandwich, County of Essex - F 501-1-0-0-18
Source: 1824 Plan of the Townships of Maidstone, Rochester and Sandwich, County of Essex - F 501-1-0-0-18
Once I located these Moynahan ancestors on the indexes, I looked for them on the corresponding maps:

Source: 1824 Plan of the Townships of Maidstone, Rochester and Sandwich, County of Essex - F 501-1-0-0-18

The above map enlarged and showing the location of the Moynahans along the Talbot and Middle roads
Source: 1824 Plan of the Townships of Maidstone, Rochester and Sandwich, County of Essex - F 501-1-0-0-18


Ministry of Natural Resources Fonds

In the Ministry of Natural Resources fonds for Essex county, there are four maps ranging from 1790 to 1824


Source: The Ministry of Natural Resources Fonds, RG 1-470
I was not able to explore these records at the time of this posting. I attempted to open RG 1-470-0-0-225 several times with no success. I'm not sure if this is an issue at their server or on my computer. If you are successful, I would love to hear what you found.




Other Ontario Land Records Links 

  
Early Irish Settlers - Essex, Ontario

2 comments:

  1. I was able to open RG 1-470-0-0-225 in Chrome, then download the pdf. It is a large file, 356MB, so was pretty slow to open. The map has lot markings but not names on it. Thanks for the heads up about this resource!
    Liz H.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks so much for posting Liz! I am going to do this right now! Glad you found the blog post helpful.
      Cindi

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