26 June 2012

Canadian Veterans Death Cards: First World War


These card images, previously only available to Library and Archives Canada staff, originate from Veterans Affairs which compiled them when notified of the death of a First World War veteran to the early 1960s.

There are approximately 130,000 cards. Arranged alphabetically in 99 cabinet drawers, each drawer was digitized as a batch with the name on the first card in a drawer used as the title of that group of cards. There is no name index, move through the images one by one, or skip ahead by entering a new page (image) number in the page navigation box.

This collection includes death cards for:
Many veterans of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who died after discharge or who died in Canada during the war
Some veterans of the British Forces who died in Canada after the war
Some members of the militia who died in Canada during or after the war
Some navy veterans who died after the war
A few veterans of the Newfoundland Forces who died after the war
A few veterans of Allied Forces (e.g. Indian, French and American armies) who died in Canada after the war
A few veterans of the North West Mounted Police who had military service
A few veterans of the South African War and the North West Field Force (1885 Rebellion)

It does not include cards for:
Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who died overseas during the war.

Additional information is at http://goo.gl/kEmdY

Begin the search at http://goo.gl/9wYRZ

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for these links! I'm a South Australian, my dad immigrated from the UK when he was a lad (1928)... his dad had "crossed the pond" to Canada and enlisted in the Canadian Expedition Force. I just found his death record/address etc thanks to you providing this link. WONDERFUL!

GordSK said...

For explanation of the ABBREVIATIONS used on the Veterans Death Cards images, see the "Help" link http://goo.gl/9wYRZ (short link in above main post).

e.g. the meanings of "Death 'Was' due" vs "Death 'not' due" -- What was CPC? (note: since phased out and replaced -- do a Google search for the full name of the CPC

CAUTION: N/K (next of kin) Relationship -- a "W" is used interchangeably for WIFE or WIDOW!! So you cannot assume much from "W" alone - except marriage I guess.

For any abbvns on the cards NOT in the short list on the help page, try looking in the larger list at:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/022/022-909.006.01-e.html