When will the next Canadian census be released?

The 1931 Canadian census will be released on 1 June 2023, it has been announced.

A national census of Canada has been conducted every ten years since 1871 and every five years since 1971, in addition to assorted colonial, provincial and local censuses.

All census records from 1871 to 1921 are available on the Libraries and Archives Canada (LAC) website and family history websites.

Under Canadian privacy laws, census records are opened to the public after 92 years.

All 234,687 pages of the census, containing records of 10,376,786 people, will be released for free on LAC’s website on 1 June.

Researchers will be able to browse them but will not be able to search them for individual names.

LAC will then work collaboratively with family history websites Ancestry and FamilySearch to make the records more accessible.

Ancestry will apply handwriting recognition technology to generate an index of the records. FamilySearch will then review the index. The records will be available to search on Census Search, LAC’s new census records website, Ancestry and FamilySearch.

Leslie Weir, Librarian and Archivist of Canada, said: “Library and Archives Canada is very excited to announce that it will be making the eagerly awaited 1931 Census of Canada available to the public in just a few months. Our partnership with Ancestry and FamilySearch will give us the opportunity to provide our users with an improved experience when searching and browsing the 1931 Census. This is directly in line with our goal to provide online, reliable and trusted access to Canada’s documentary heritage.”

Rosemary Collins is the features editor of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine