Place:Simcoe District, Upper Canada, Canada

Much of the information in this article has been gathered from Ontario GenWeb and The Archives of Ontario online article: The Changing Shape of Ontario

The Simcoe District was the subject of an act of the provincial legislature in 1837 "to compose a separate and distinct district, to be henceforth called and known by the name of the district of Simcoe." But the district was not proclaimed until 1843. The district was carved out of the northern section of the Home District. The length of winters and the shortness of the crop-growing season dissuaded many settlers until the 1830s. Once the district was established, its district town was Barrie.

The delay in proclaiming the District allowed it to increase in size from the original 19 townships of Simcoe County in 1843 (including two that were later allocated to Ontario County) to 24 townships of which 5 were in Grey County and 2 were in Dufferin. Grey and Dufferin Counties were not established until after 1849 when the District was abolished.

The Archives of Ontario has produced a series of maps illustrating the growth of the District system across the province. Each map ought to be expanded to its maximum size in order to benefit from the information it contains. Return to the collection using the "back" button on your browser.

Ontario Districts: an Explanation

When Upper Canada was formed in 1788 it was immediately divided into four districts: Hesse, Nassau, Mecklenburg and Lunenburg. In 1792 these names were changed to Western, Home, Midland and Eastern respectively. The expansion in population of the province, and in the area settled, obliged the number of Districts to increase. By 1849 there were twenty individual districts, each with a number of counties under its jurisdiction.
After 1841, when the government of Upper Canada was reorganized and the province became known as Canada West, some of the responsibilities of the districts were transferred to local municipal councils in cities and towns (e.g. property tax collecting), although the districts still retained complete control over judicial matters.
From 1788 until 1849 in the area which is now Ontario, the District was the layer of government responsible for all judicial and administrative functions that could be carried out at a level below that of the province itself. Counties existed in the province from 1792, but they were little more than electoral and census divisions.
In 1849 the Districts were abolished and their functions were taken over by the individual counties or by united counties working within one municipal administration.

Most of the government documents the genealogist may require—those dealing with land, the registration of marriages, and minor criminal proceedings--will have been produced by the District before 1849 and by the Counties after that date. Serious land conflicts, or those concerning more than one District, will have found their way into Provincial Records. The same will have been true of criminal matters. Divorce was not even a provincial matter, but a federal one, until 1930.