Hi! When reading all the posts from the Canadian Census Campaign mailing list, I always have the same questions that come to mind: 1) Why can we have the same access that Americans do to the census? If it's good for them, why not us? 2) Why is Canada so slow at providing online services that include images and surname indices of popular records such as each census up until 1911, passenger lists before 1925, vital records, etc...? 3) If it is too much of a task for the National Archives to do, why can't companies such as Ancestry.com or rootsweb bring this data online? I often feel that the government is robbing us of our right to know our own heritage by complicating the process of researching genealogical data. In the case, of the census... why do we face so many hurdles. Do we really need a bill to give us access to information that should be public domain? Is the latest bill the best anybody can do? Is it our best and only solution to have access to our heritage? Why do things have to be this way. Reading the many posts, I can not figure out if I'm for the Bill (including the suggested ammendments) or against it because it is too restrictive and inconsiderate to genealogists of future generations (i.e. the opt clause+20year). I'm not starting any flames. I appreciate the hard work that Gordon and Murial have done to get us this far. I am simply projecting my thoughts... hoping I can rationalize what is happening. Thanks for reading my post and I welcome any feedback, opinions, and suggestions that anybody may have. Yours Truly, Michael R. Samario

Different companies are working on indexing those censuses. There are using volunteers. The more people they get working on it, the faster it would be available and free to access by anyone. There are already a few indexed, in Ontario from 1842 to 1901. I don't know about the other provinces. The American censuses were indexed much faster, maybe because more people were involved in doing just that. But most of their indexed census are not free to access. That's a shame. Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: "Samario, Michael" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 3:32 PM Subject: [CCC] It seems were always behind! > Hi! > > When reading all the posts from the Canadian Census Campaign mailing list, I always have the same questions that come to mind: > > 1) Why can we have the same access that Americans do to the census? If it's good for them, why not us? > 2) Why is Canada so slow at providing online services that include images and surname indices of popular records such as each census up until 1911, passenger lists before 1925, vital records, etc...? > 3) If it is too much of a task for the National Archives to do, why can't companies such as Ancestry.com or rootsweb bring this data online? > > I often feel that the government is robbing us of our right to know our own heritage by complicating the process of researching genealogical data. In the case, of the census... why do we face so many hurdles. Do we really need a bill to give us access to information that should be public domain? Is the latest bill the best anybody can do? Is it our best and only solution to have access to our heritage? Why do things have to be this way. > > Reading the many posts, I can not figure out if I'm for the Bill (including the suggested ammendments) or against it because it is too restrictive and inconsiderate to genealogists of future generations (i.e. the opt clause+20year). > > I'm not starting any flames. I appreciate the hard work that Gordon and Murial have done to get us this far. I am simply projecting my thoughts... hoping I can rationalize what is happening. > > Thanks for reading my post and I welcome any feedback, opinions, and suggestions that anybody may have. > > > Yours Truly, > > Michael R. Samario > > ______________________________