Place:Ajax, Ontario, Ontario, Canada

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

Ajax came into being in 1941 and in 2006 had a population of 90,167. It was located in Pickering Township, Ontario County until 1974. In that year Ontario County merged with part of Durham County as the Regional Municipality of Durham. It is located approximately 25km east of Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario.

The town is named for the HMS Ajax, a Royal Navy cruiser that served in World War II.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Before the Second World War, the territory in which Ajax is situated was a rural part of the township of Pickering. The town did not originate as a typical rural village, but is a 20th Century planned community that was first established in 1941 when Pickering Works, a Defence Industries Limited (D.I.L.) shell plant, was constructed and a townsite grew around the plant. By 1945 the plant had filled 40 million shells and employed over 9,000 people at peak production. It had its own water and sewage treatment plants, a school population of over 600, and of railroad and of roads. The entire D.I.L. plant site included some . People came from all over Canada to work at D.I.L.

The burgeoning community received its name in honour of the first significant British naval victory of the war. From December 13 to December 19, 1939, a flotilla of British warships — HMS Ajax, and HMS Achilles — commanded by Commodore Henry Harwood — engaged and routed the powerful German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate, near the Uruguayan port of Montevideo in South America. Ajax was chosen as the name of this war-born community.

After the war, the University of Toronto leased much of the D.I.L. plant to house the flood of newly discharged soldiers who had enrolled as engineering students. War machines were moved out and the buildings were converted to classrooms and laboratories. By 1949, the last year of the University of Toronto Ajax Division, some 7,000 engineering students had received their basic training there.

Following the departure of the University of Toronto, the town's growth was largely due to the vision of George W. Finley of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and Ajax became a planned modern community using the wartime base for its post-war foundation.

From 1941 to 1950, Ajax had no local municipal government of its own. In 1950, as a result of a petition, the community became the Corporation of the Improvement District of Ajax with three trustees appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. By 1953, the desire for full and active participation by its citizens in an elected council and school board was strong. The Ajax Citizens' Association, formed by many civic-minded persons, presented a brief to the Ontario Municipal Board urging that the Improvement District of Ajax become the Corporation of the Town of Ajax. The Municipal Board approved this step, and on December 13, 1954, the people elected the first Town Council and the first Public School Board.

On June 22, 1973, the Ontario Legislature enacted Bill 162 to amalgamate the Town of Ajax and the Village of Pickering and annex certain portions of the Township of Pickering to the Town of Ajax, as part of the creation of the new Durham Region; this also included the remote lakeside Town of Pickering Beach. The Region and Town both officially came into being on January 1, 1974.

Research Tips

The primary source for basic documents (vital statistics, land records, wills) for people who lived in the Province of Ontario is the Archives of Ontario, 134 Ian Macdonald Blvd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M7A 2C5.

Early Records

Civil registration did not begin in the province until 1869. Before then there may be church records of baptisms and burials. For the most part these are still held by the denomination who recorded them. Copies of marriage records made pre-1869 had to be sent by individual clergymen to the registrar of the county in which the marriage took place. These marriage records are available through Ontario Archives, on micorfilm through LDS libraries, and on paid and unpaid websites, but because they were copied at the registrars' offices, they cannot be considered a primary source.

Vital Records after 1869

Birth, marriage and death registrations are not open to the public until a specific number of years after the event occurred. Births to 1915 are now available [October 2014]; dates for marriages and deaths are later. Birth and death registration was not universally carried out in the early years after its adoption. Deaths were more apt to be reported than births for several years. The more rural the area, the less likely it would be that these happenings were reported to the authorities.
Images and indexes of civil registrations for the "viewable" years can be found on paid websites, and indexes only on FamilySearch. The FamilySearch Wiki on Ontario Vital Records explains how these records are organized and their availability.
In September 2014 Ancestry.ca announced that its paid website has been subjected to a "houseclean" of its Ontario BMD database, adding data that had been omitted and making many corrections. Its provision now includes

• Births, with 2,172,124 records covering 1869-1913.
• Marriages, with 3,393,369 records for 1801-1928 including Ontario county, district and Roman Catholic origins as well as province-wide civil registration.
• Deaths, with 2,190,030 records comprising Ontario civil registrations of deaths, 1869-1938 and registrations of Ontario overseas deaths for 1939-1947.

Land Records and Wills

Information on how to access land records and wills is best sought on the Archives of Ontario website. An ancestor's land holding might be found on Canadian County Atlas Digital Project if he was in occupancy circa 1878.

Association for the Preservation of Ontario Land Registry Office Documents (APOLROD). A list of Land Registry Offices for all Counties of Ontario.

Censuses

The original censuses are in the hands of Library and Archives Canada, known to Canadians as "LAC". Copies of original microfilms are online at the LAC website for all censuses up to 1921. Each census database is preceded with an explanation of the geographical area covered, the amount of material retained (some census division material has been lost), the questions on the census form, and whether there is a name index. Census divisions were redrawn as the population increased and more land was inhabited.
Other websites, some paid and some free, also provide Canadian census originals and/or indexes online. One can also view censuses on microfilm at the LAC, at the Archives of Ontario (see address above), or at large libraries throughout Canada.

Hard-to-Find Places

• National Resources Canada's Index of Geographical Names: Query by Name. This database includes even the smallest places all over Canada and provides geographical co-ordinates and maps which extend out from the "found place". Correct spelling of a place is essential.
• Archives of Ontario have a web page titled "The Changing Face of Ontario" (which is very hard to find without this link). This provides maps of Ontario and its divisions in the 19th century (pre Confederation in 1867) and also includes links to series of historical maps of the individual counties as they were between 1867 and the 1970s when a huge reorganization of municipalities began. The Districts of Northern Ontario and Maps of Southern and Central Ontario circa 1951 show the townships of each county.

E-books, Books and Newspapers

• The Internet Archive, particularly texts from Canadian universities, can contain interesting material
• Our Roots is a Canadian website similar to The Internet Archive
• Global Genealogy is an online bookshop specializing in Ontario material who will ship anywhere in the world.
• The Ancestor Hunt is a blog listing old Ontario newspapers that are available online, both free and pay websites. This is a very extensive list.

All documents relating to people and families in the period up to 1974 continue to be found in files relating to Ontario County. However, the local branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is called Durham Region Branch.

Some websites with more local information on Ontario County

• Ontario GenWeb provides a general introduction
• Durham GenWeb is hosted by a family historian who lives in Durham Region and may be able to give guidance to those searching in the old Ontario County as well.
• Durham Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. Their website includes tabs titled Publications and Resources which may contain useful references.
• Ontario County Genealogy and History is a large website with a lot of historical data on the area. There are no fees for the "subscription" parts of the website.
• The Pickering/Ajax digital archive contains a host of useful material for people searching in that area.
• Similarly, The Whitby Online Historic Photographs Collection holds a great deal of local material (biographies as well as pictures) of people and localities within the town and township of Whitby.
• Whitby Public Library have digitized an index of vital statistics and have linked them to page images from 140 years of various newspaper titles from the Whitby area; OCR full text searching will be available before the end of the year (2012).
• The Port Perry/Scugog Heritage Gallery is a website produced by "Observer Publishing of Port Perry" which contains articles by Rev R Monteith written in 1859 describing different parts of Reach Township from the time of the earliest settler in 1821 to his own day. Observer Publishing appears to have more offline material as well.
• Ontario County, a short sketch of its settlement, physical features and resource with brief historical notes written by J E Farewell, county clerk, and published 1907 is a .pdf file provided by Oshawa Public Library
• Some of the other cities and towns (Oshawa, Uxbridge) and even some of the northern rural townships may have websites with interesting local material.