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While there is no single body of records that identifies all immigrants and settlers in Nova Scotia and Ontario before Confederation in 1867, the six books included on this CD comprise the largest pool of information on early Canadian settlers available, naming over 130,000 settlers from Ireland, Scotland, England, and colonial America, many of them Loyalists from disbanded regiments or pro-British refugees fleeing New York and New England. Based on the best primary and secondary sources available, these works contain a mix of data featuring name, occupation, residence, place of origin, age, family members, name of ship, date of arrival, military affiliation, and land grants. As a group, they form a virtual encyclopedia of early Nova Scotia and Ontario families.

Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, by Leonard and Norma Smith, contains data abstracted from dozens of manuscript repositories, including the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and archives in Fredericton, Church Point, Ottawa, Boston, London, and Paris. Also included is data from over 450 articles in Nova Scotia periodicals.

Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, Volume II, by Leonard and Norma Smith, identifies immigrants recorded in selected periodicals published outside Nova Scotia. Designed to help researchers untangle Nova Scotia roots, this volume and the one described above may be viewed as the starting point in Nova Scotia immigration research.

Yarmouth Nova Scotia Genealogies, by George S. Brown, is a collection of 186 articles that were originally published in the Yarmouth Herald between 1896 and 1910. Naming some 60,000 individuals, Brown's columns focus on New England families who migrated to Nova Scotia around the time of the Revolutionary War, tracing them from their earliest known origins down to the end of the 19th century. With additional articles containing selected Yarmouth source records, this is clearly the pre-eminent work on Nova Scotia genealogy.

Loyalists and Land Settlement in Nova Scotia, by Marion Gilroy, encompasses all surviving information on the 10,000 Loyalists who were eligible for land in Nova Scotia. Each Loyalist is identified by name, date and site of grant, acreage, and, in some cases, the individual's military rank.

Early Ontario Settlers, by Norman Crowder, contains official records of the early settlers of Upper Canada, or Ontario, for the years 1783 to 1789, chiefly population returns, provisioning lists, settlers' location lists, and lists of immigrant arrivals. The information provided ranges from a record of the Niagara region of 1783, which lists family members and their respective ages, to a 1789 return of disbanded troops and Loyalists in the Detroit region. The bulk of these early settlers were discharged servicemen, refugees, or American Loyalists who had served with the Royal Highland Emigrants, the King's Royal Regiment of New York, Butler's Rangers, Jessup's Loyal Rangers, or James Rogers' King's Rangers, among other units.

Ontario People: 1796-1803, by E. Keith Fitzgerald, is primarily a transcription of the District Loyalist Rolls of 1796, giving information on Loyalists and refugees entitled to hold land in light of their oath of allegiance to the British Crown. Also included is supplementary data from the author's own research, making this book a particularly valuable source of information on the early inhabitants of Ontario.

System Requirements: You must have a CD-ROM drive, and in order to read the CD you must use either the Family Archive Viewer (version 4.0 or higher), which is available as a free download at http://www.genealogical.com/content/dlfav6.html, or Family Tree Maker for Windows, version 4.0 or higher (Family Tree Maker software can be ordered from www.FamilyTreeMaker.com).

To access information on our Family Archive CDs using the Family Archive Viewer:

1. Install the Family Archive Viewer CD or download it from http://www.genealogy.com/dlfav6.html.
2. Start the Viewer if it is not already running
3. Insert the CD you wish to view into the CD-ROM drive. If you have 2 or more CD-ROM drives, the CD must be placed in the first one.
4. The CD should open automatically, but users of later versions of the Family Archive Viewer must click the CD/magnifying glass icon in the top toolbar (above the template in some versions) to read the CD.
5. When the screen entitled “About this Family Archive‿ appears, click OK where prompted.

To access information on our Family Archive CDs using Family Tree Maker:

1. Start your Family Tree Maker and open a Family File. (If the program is already running, skip to Step 2.)
2. Insert the CD in your computer's CD-ROM drive. (If you have 2 or more CD-ROM drives, the CD must be placed in the first one.)
3. From the View menu, select Family Finder, or select the Family Finder icon from the toolbar.
4. For FTM 2005, FTM 2006, or Version 16 or later: From the View menu, select Data CD, then View CD.

To search the CD for names, select the Search Expert button in the top right of your screen, then select "Search this archive for someone NOT from your Family File." You can also search for names by using the Index.

Note: If a window opens that contains a list of files on the CD, simply close it.