- Orders in Council
You might not think of these as a resource for researching family history. Think again. There are many examples of individuals identified by name in the OICs, lighthouse keepers, post office employees and in the 19th century, appointments/promotions in the civil service, military, Mounted Police, lists of individuals, with background information, admitted to Canada in the 1930s, etc. There’s information on every CEF pension granted before the creation of the Bureau of Pension Commissioners in 1917; that pension information is not otherwise easily accessible. Find out more at LAC’s research guide Orders-in-Council, 1867 to 1940.
What’s new?
For many years nothing changed. LAC is now working to add post-1926 IOC information to Collection Search. But NOT the actual document. Instead, they selected Transkribus software to process titles from the OIC registers, indices created by the Privy Council Office to facilitate their access to the records. Obtuse abbreviations and acronyms were widely used.
Combining the PCO index and Transcribus can produce a muddy bluddle.
Here are three examples:
1940
Agreement with the Government of New pundland se taking and transmitting of meterogrial
observations Min. T. 10-4-40
1939
Mease lights of pewart on Active service in Pritish A. Oilied forces to be Left free from real of
cancellation until Co. Le to be to Min M&R 6 Oct 1939|
1927
Distruction Int & Post Act. Amendment to Regulations re importation of peacher. Mursery stock
&c Min Agri 26 July 1927.
Such distortions are particularly troublesome for searching proper names and places. What could be done? I prompted Gemini with “You are an expert in finding errors in transcribed text. Examine these one line resignation notices from Canadian Orders in Council that were transcribed using Transcribus, suggest where there may be errors, suggest a better transcription or transcriptions, and give a confidence level for each. Format as a table.” Here are a few examples of the original (Transcribus) and Gemini suggested versions.
| Transcription Version | Transcription Text |
| Original | Resignation of C. C. Dury as a member of the Canadian Farm roan Board acceptd 30 |
| Suggested | Resignation of E. C. Drury as a member of the Canadian Farm Loan Board accepted 30 [June 1930] |
| Original | Resignation of Element H. Whitman as Reserve of Weeks for the District of Canse, N. S. Min. Marine 24 June 1930 |
| Suggested | Resignation of Clement H. Whitman as Receiver of Wrecks for the District of Canso, N.S. Min. Marine 24 June 1930 |
| Original | Resignation of Mr R. R C Hery Deputy Min R & C. and appt of Mr. Valenture Inving Sment as Dry Min. R & C P M 5 March 1930 |
| Suggested | Resignation of Mr. R. A. C. Henry Deputy Min. R. & C. and appt. of Mr. Valentine Irving Smart as Dpy. [or Dep.] Min. R. & C. P.M. 5 March 1930 |
| Original | Resignation of Mr W. H. Moose as Chairman of the Advisory Bd. on Tariff and Taration, as of June 171930 Acceptance of Min Fin 28 June 1930 |
| Suggested | Resignation of Mr. W. H. Moore as Chairman of the Advisory Bd. on Tariff and Taxation, as of June 17 1930 Acceptance of [or by] Min. Fin. 28 June 1930 |
| Original | Resignation of Mr. Gordon W. Scott as Chairman of the Board of Audit, from 9 Oct 1930 S. G. H Perly for Min Fin 13 Oct 1930 |
| Suggested | Resignation of Mr. Gordon W. Scott as Chairman of the Board of Audit, from 9 Oct 1930 Sir G. H. Perley for Min. Fin. 13 Oct 1930 |
| Original | Resignation of R. S. McLellan of Sydney N.S. as a Cont & investigate charges of partizanship in N. S. Min Fisheries 26 Dec 1930 |
| Suggested | Resignation of R. S. McLellan of Sydney N.S. as a Comr. to investigate charges of partisanship [or partizanship] in N.S. Min. Fisheries 26 Dec 1930 |
| Original | Resignation of Reve Fother P. Liclese as Roman Catholes Chaplain of Grosse Isle Quarantine St Min P & N. H. 23 Dec 1930 |
| Suggested | Resignation of Revd. Father P. Leclerc [or L’Ecuyer] as Roman Catholic Chaplain of Grosse Isle Quarantine Stn. Min. P. & N.H. 23 Dec 1930 |
It wouldn’t take a lot more effort to process the output of Transcribus through a Large Language Model and include the result where the change is suggested with high confidence?
Even better, given the state of technology, why not process the original OIC documents?
This post has benefited from the advice of two anonymous researchers with in-depth knowledge of OIC records.
- Nazi war criminals in Canada
Ottawa declassifies new details about CIA’s role in resettling Nazi war criminals in Canada
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawa-declassifies-new-details-about-cias-role-in-resettling-nazi-war/
- What’s in Collection Search?
As of 20 October, there are 7,954,478 (7,954,212 on 13 October) items in the Archives section of Collection Search, 8,227,688 (no change) in the Genealogy section, 4,442,785 (4,441,736) in Library.
There was a huge increase, to 391,058 from 353,363 in Images last week. Browsing that collection sorted by Date (newest) makes me question the selection criteria. Why these three images?