Indexing Ontario Birth Registrations post 1912
The microfilm of Ontario Birth Registrations is public through births registered in 1917. This is in Archives of Ontario MS 929, Reel 237 and above. Presumably the FHL has copies of these microfilm reels, since it manufactured them for the Archives of Ontario. I presume therefore that they have been digitized. There may be contractual limitations on making these images public, but my only concern is to be able to index them. I am also restricting access to births of people who are at least 105 years old to protect the privacy as required by Ontario regulations. I have already indexed over 3,200 of the births from 1913, 1914, and 1915 directly from the AO microfilm, however at the moment further progress is impeded because the Archives of Ontario has shut down for the duration and I cannot borrow the reels through inter-library-loan even though my local public library currently permits two hours of research at a time. I cannot check the digitization status of the microfilm reels because I do not know the LDS reel numbers, only the AO reel numbers. My existing transcriptions are available in English, French, JSON, and XML on the Web.
I would appreciate some guidance on how I can obtain access to the images of these microfilm reels so that I can continue my indexing project.
https://www.jamescobban.net/Canada/BirthRegStats.php?RegDomain=CAON&lang=en
Answers
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James, I searched both the records and the catalog in the FamilySearch Website and could not find the specific record that you referenced (Archives of Ontario MS 929, Reel 237, etc). There are certainly birth records from Ontario, but they are not the same ones that you are looking for (e.g. https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1784212 ).
There are also Archives of Ontario listed in the catalog, but again, I couldn't find the same archive that you are searching. ( https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/results?count=20&query=%2Bkeywords%3AArchives%20%2Bkeywords%3Aof%20%2Bkeywords%3AOntario&page=1&topic0=Birth%2C+Marriage+and+Death ). This second search has 520 results and I didn't search them all, but there was nothing with the number MS 929, Reel 237. You could certainly look through these sources to see if there is something that would help you with you indexing.
One other source is from the catalog in the search for Ontario Brith Registrations. (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/results?count=20&query=%2Bkeywords%3AOntario%20%2Bkeywords%3ABirth%20%2Bkeywords%3ARegistrations ). There were 61 results, but again I didn't search them all.
Good luck with your search. I hope that the Archives of Ontario will open soon.
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Thank you for your effort. The latest AO microfilm of birth registrations that appears on FamilySearch is LDS reel 2435797 which corresponds to AO MS 929 reel 231, births in 1912. I appreciate that FamilySearch cannot make anything available on its website from these microfilm reels without the express permission of the Archives of Ontario. I asked for and obtained that permission from AO for the 1,037 digitized images which I have personally made from the microfilm for 1913, 1914, and 1915. Ancestry has images from MS 929 reel 237 through MS 929 reel 255, comprising 1913 and 1914, which are linked by the Ancestry nominal index. I also appreciate that Ancestry has a right to impose restrictions on its databases to recover the cost of creating them. However possibly because of COVID-19 Ancestry has not yet made the records from 1915 and 1916 accessible even though they are now public under the 105 year exclusion rules of Ontario. I am not interested in the Ancestry nominal index, or the FamilySearch nominal index, because they lack information which I require for my research, so I have a independent nominal indices for dozens of primary sources. In particular I have transcribed 61,745 Ontario Birth registrations. I need access to the raw images whose copyright resides with the Government of Ontario but the policy of the Archives of Ontario is that they make these images available only through 3rd party agencies such as Ancestry, or through microfilm inter-library loans, which they paused operating during the pandemic. All of my transcriptions are freely available in English, French, JSON, and XML as long as whoever copies them does not do so for financial gain.
I am also working on a separate indexing project for the employee records of the London, Ontario Insane Asylum for which the Archives of Ontario has graciously provided me with digital scans from the original employee register. The progress of that transcription project, and the images which I have permission to display, is at https://www.jamescobban.net/Ontario/OntarioHospitalLedger.php?Location=London&lang=en
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I have been waiting over 2 weeks for an update on this issue.
For my own research I need access to the images of the 1915 and 1916 Ontario Births. This information is public because Ontario imposes a 105 year privacy limit, which means the 1915 Births are public now and the 1916 Births will be public at the end of this year. I do not need access to a nominal index as I am performing research on a geographical area, so I need to see all of the birth registrations from that area for the years 1915 and 1916. I cannot wait for Ancestry or FamilySearch to complete indexing projects. I have tried to borrow the microfilm from the Ontario Archives but it has shut down for the pandemic. I do not know exactly who created the microfilm for the Ontario Archives but earlier years were manufactured by the FHL on contract with the Ontario Archives. In exchange for assistance in gaining access to the images of the 1915 and 1916 Ontario Births I am willing to donate my transcriptions to FamilySearch. I have already transcribed 981 of the 1915 births from the last time I had access to a copy of the microfilm. Altogether I have transcribed 51,931 Ontario Births, 31,026 Ontario Marriages, 34,699 Ontario Deaths, and over a million lines from Canadian censuses. All of these transcriptions are available for free in English, French, XML, and JSON formats to anyone who does not intend to use them for commercial purposes. So FamilySearch can use them but Ancestry would need to negotiate for permission.
All I want to do is transcribe these births from the images of the original documents. The Ontario Archives does not appear to believe in the Internet as it adamantly refuses to even consider making its holdings available on the Web, and at the moment it does not appear to support distribution of the microfilm copies of its records because of the pandemic.
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