google-site-verification: google65e716d80989ba07.html New Search Engine Serves in the Discovery of Canadian Genealogy | The Armchair Genealogist

New Search Engine Serves in the Discovery of Canadian Genealogy


Similar to Google, the Canadiana Discovery Portal is a search engine, but what sets it apart from the others are the 60 million pages of data that focus primarily on Canadian heritage and history. These pages are a collection of digitized images composed from various archives, including libraries, museums, universities and government agencies.  They include material such as books, journals, newspapers, government documents, photographs, maps, post cards, sheet music, audio and video files all from Canada’s heritage. 

If you are searching a particular topic in Canadian History or researching your own family genealogy, the Canadiana Discovery Portal is a great focused essential tool.

This new free search engine is brought to you by Canadiana.org an organization that interests lie in digitizing, preserving and providing Canadian history to millions online.  Their mission statement reads: The mission of Canadiana.org is to support enduring access to Canada’s digital documentary heritage for Canadians and the world. This is a great thing for Canadians researching their family history online. 

The Canadian Discovery Portal offers multiple ways to search, such as by name, city, and subject. The search engine will return a list of exact pages on a document. Click on the document and you can view the original. You can also find where that document can be viewed in person should you find the need.  You can find tune your results with a date range and sort your finds by relevance and from newest to oldest, as well sort your results by language and by contributor.

Once the image is loaded, you can minimize or enlarge the size, mark it, rotate it or download it as a PDF.  I’ve taken this search engine for a test drive and I am impressed. It will be my first stop when researching any Canadian history content on the web.

The amount of collections are growing so check often.  Canadian.org is continually adding new content; there goal to bring all Canadian collections prior to 1990 to a digital format.

You can register by email to received alerts on new collections as they are added. Be sure to check out this very important online research tool for Canadian History.