First
Published September 4, 2015
Revised
October 21, 2015
Last
Revised February 19, 2017: Trafalgar
Twp. Historical Soc.
How to Find War of 1812 Related Documents
for Your Ancestors
Part 4:
War Loss Claims
This is a series of blogs on how to find Upper Canadian
documents from about the time of the War of 1812, but some of these strategies
could be applied to other British provinces.
This discussion will focus on documents from before, during, and after
the war.
The
war loss claims can help you learn more about your ancestors even if they did
not serve in an Upper Canadian Militia or Corps or in a British regiment. The claims were made by men and women (and
sometimes their heirs), those with religious exemptions from militia service,
Coloured people and Native Americans, and even some American citizens. If your ancestor, like mine, did not make a
war loss claim, they may have certified or witnessed someone else’s claim in
the same community. These claims can
reveal details about life during the war and your ancestor’s experiences during
that time period.
The
Collections Canada, War of 1812, Board of Claims for Losses digital microfilm
is online at
There
are 23 digital microfilms in this collection.
The Help link on the right side of the page, above the microfilm list,
has an introduction and table of contents.
The claims were usually filed together but there was
also a register of certificates supporting claims and some pages were misfiled
in other people’s claims. The claim
registers in the collection are incomplete and contain a number of
transcription errors.
My
improved index to this collection has been published online with the help of
the Trafalgar Township Historical Society at
In
1813, the first set of claims was made for losses to the Upper Canada
Militia. An index to these claims has
been published in the 1813 War Loss Claims Page.
A more inclusive claim board was established in 1815
but this board did not have the funds to pay the claims. As there were different commissions for
losses to the British, the Americans, and Indians aiding both armies, a
claimant may have made two or more separate claims. The claimants had to wait until 1823 when
another board approved payments, but not always in full. Because of the delays in obtaining recompense,
some families were left destitute for over ten years after their loss.
Claims were rejected for a number of reasons,
including fraud and lack of evidence.
Agents were sometimes hired to appeal rejections or to facilitate the
claim process. Carpenters, and other
tradesmen, and merchants sometimes certified the value of lost items.
The ideal war loss claim included details for who,
what, when, where, why, and how the loss occurred. However, many claims lacked some these
details. In other cases, documents were
illegible or difficult to read.
Claims
indicated who suffered the loss, when, and where, and who was responsible for
causing the loss. The more detailed
claims may even record the name, rank, and regiment of the people
involved. Some claims lacked a detailed
list of what was lost while others gave itemized lists of the contents of a
stolen trunk or burnt house. Rather than
an exact date for a loss, there may have been no date given, just the year, or
just the month or season in a particular year.
Another
problem was discovering where the loss occurred. Most claims were indexed with the place where
the claimant was living during the war but some were indexed with the place
where the claim was submitted, the place where the claimant was living after
the event, or the place where the loss occurred. Claims for losses were sometimes registered
in major towns like York and Niagara because the claimant had travelled there
from another community to have his claim prepared and submitted. If you are
looking for an ancestor’s claim you may have to look for their surname in other
localities where you would normally not expect to find them.
Why and how a loss occurred would have helped the
commissioners determine the validity of the claim but this information was
sometimes lacking as well. A number of
interesting stories were reported by witnesses to some of the events. Hopefully you will discover some interesting
stories for your family history.
Fred Blair
2017
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