Place:Cataraqui Cemetery, Kingston, Frontenac, Ontario, Canada

Resources

• Cataraqui Cemetery
• FindAGrave: Cataraqui Cemetery
• Canadian GenWeb Cemetery Project - Ontario - Cataraqui Cemetery
• OGS Kingston Branch (website listed at bottom of this page) has a full transcription of Cataraqui Cemetery published as a CD.

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

Cataraqui Cemetery, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, is the city's largest and oldest still active with over 46,000 interments. Cataraqui Cemetery continues to offer the greater Kingston area a variety of interment, cremation and memorialization options and services. The Cemetery is most noted as being the burial site of Canada's first prime minister and a Father of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald. Macdonald's gravesite, and the cemetery itself, are both designated as National Historic Sites of Canada.

The Charter of The Cataraqui Cemetery Company was handed down on 10 August 1850, by the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. The Cataraqui Cemetery is unique in that it is owned collectively by the Interment Rights Holders or "patrons" of the Cemetery. It operates as a not-for-profit, non-denominational, reform cemetery. The Cataraqui Cemetery Board of Trustees is elected from the Interment Rights Holders. Sir Alexander Campbell (a Father of Confederation and law partner of Sir John A. Macdonald) served as the Board's first President. The Board is accountable for all aspects of the Cemetery by delegating responsibility of the operations to the General Manager and a full-time staff. A volunteer citizen advisory committee also assists the Board and Management with the stewardship of the cemtery.

The Cemetery was developed using the Rural or Garden theme, after the pattern of Mount Auburn near Boston and Mount Hope in Rochester, New York. The 91-acre cemetery includes roadways winding through rolling wooded terrain, ponds and watercourses all laid out in the Picturesque style of landscaping. Cataraqui Cemetery predates other notable Canadian cemeteries such as Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa Ontario, Mt Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto Ontario and Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal Quebec.

Located within the Cemetery office, is a dramatic stained glass window commissioned in 1891 in memory of Sir John A. Macdonald. Originally installed in a church at Redan, north of Brockville, it was salvaged from the church and donated to the Cemetery in 1980 when the current Office/Crematorium was built.

Other historically notable occupants include:

• Thomas Kirkpatrick, first mayor of the Town of Kingston
• John Counter, first mayor of the City of Kingston
• Sir Alexander Campbell, a Father of Confederation and a former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
• Wallace Bruce Matthews Carruthers founder of the Canadian Signal Corps, the first independent signalling corps in the British Empire
• Evan MacColl, the Loch Fyne Bard
• Zachary Taylor Wood, Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) and Commissioner of the Yukon Territory of Canada.

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 1914 are now available [October 2012]; 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 latest year published is not yet available online. The FamilySearch Wiki on Ontario Vital Records explains how these records are organized and their availability.

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. All of the original census (1851-1911) images are online with the exception of that for 1861. Not all of them are indexed. Later censuses are not yet available. 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 view censuses on microfilm at the Archives of Ontario or at big libraries throughout Canada.

E-books and Books

• 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.
  
  

Some websites with more local information on Frontenac County

• The Kingston Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has a list of publications and may be of help in searching local material.
• http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onfronte/ the website of Frontenac GenWeb is looking for a host and thus may not be as uptodate as it might be.
• The Kingston Public Library has a list of printed books about Kingston and Frontenac County
• The Internet Archive has the Illustrated historical atlas of the counties of Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Ontario