Tracing the History of Your Ottawa House

Prepared by Erika E. Barre, 2015

Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Searching for Ottawa Housing Records ...................................................................................... 1

Legal Description and Title Search................................................................................................. 1

City Directories ............................................................................................................................... 2

Search Tips.................................................................................................................................. 3

Assessment Rolls ............................................................................................................................ 3

Search Tips.................................................................................................................................. 4

Fire Insurance Plans and Maps ....................................................................................................... 5

Search Tips.................................................................................................................................. 6

Architectural and Construction Records ......................................................................................... 6

Search Tips.................................................................................................................................. 7

Newspapers ..................................................................................................................................... 7

Search Tips.................................................................................................................................. 8

Photographs..................................................................................................................................... 8

Search Tips.................................................................................................................................. 9

Other Archives Sources .................................................................................................................. 9

Manuscripts ................................................................................................................................. 9

Community Associations ............................................................................................................ 9

Outside Resources ......................................................................................................................... 11

Archives of Ontario................................................................................................................... 11

Land Registry Office................................................................................................................. 11

Library and Archives Canada ................................................................................................... 11

MacOdrum Library at Carleton University ............................................................................... 12

Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry ............................................................................. 12

Morisset Library at University of Ottawa ................................................................................. 12

National Air Photo Library ....................................................................................................... 12

The Ottawa Room at the Ottawa Public Library, Main Branch ............................................... 12

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Introduction The City of Ottawa Archives is the gateway to exploring the history of your home and other Ottawa buildings. With records and archival materials pre-dating Confederation, information can be found about many houses and properties within the City of Ottawa, its former municipalities, and the surrounding rural areas. Whether you are looking for a house’s previous appearance, re-creating the lives of its previous occupants, dating its construction, or simply curious about a building’s past, the Archives provides the tools and resources for your search.

This booklet will get you started researching the history of your home at the City of Ottawa Archives. City directories, assessment rolls, maps, and architectural records are the primary resources available in the Reference Room Library alongside newspaper, photograph, and estate collections. The Archives also provides access to online tools, such as newspapers.com, and can recommend other websites relating to community heritage.

Searching for Ottawa Housing Records There are several moments in Ottawa’s built heritage that will affect your search for housing records; it is important to understand these events so that you will know where to look for information and what information you may not be able to locate.

1892 City of Ottawa began issuing building permits.

1925 The Province of Ontario implemented build code legislations whose statutes were enacted by all Ontario cities.

1931 After 1925, building records were stored at City Hall. However, in 1931 City Hall burned down, damaging or destroying all building records and many tax assessment records from the previous years.

1944 Copies of architectural drawings must be submitted to the City of Ottawa with the building permit for all new constructions or major alterations.

1964 Zoning by-laws were consolidated.

Legal Description and Title Search Before starting your research, you will need to obtain a legal description of the property that you are exploring. A legal description is a set of property specifications that can be used to trace the location, sales history, and legal disputes relating to a lot; this information includes the lot number and dimensions, concessions number, and ward or subdivision alongside the current and previous street address. In essence, a legal description is more concerned with the land that a house was built on rather than the building itself or the people who lived in it.

To obtain a legal description, you can go to the Land Registry Office (located in the Court House at 161 Elgin St.) or geoOttawa (maps.ottawa.ca/geoottawa). The Land Registry Office will be

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able to provide the original and current legal descriptions whereas geoOttawa will only be able to provide the current legal description. You can also obtain a copy of your title search from your lawyer, as it is part of the documentation included when closing the sale of a house.

To use geoOttawa to find a property’s legal description:

1. Go to the geoOttawa website located at maps.ottawa.ca/geoottawa. 2. Enter the current street address of the property into the search bar at the top of the page. 3. Select the “Property Report” link in the pop-up menu. 4. Consult the Ward Map on display in the Reference Room Library to determine the lot’s

original ward.

Example of a legal description:

Address 145 Echo Drive

Postal Code K1S 1M9

Plan No. 27 PT Lots 24 & 25 RP; 4R16486 Parts 2 to 6

PIN No. 041250181

Frontage 152 ft

Depth 51.5 ft

Ward No. 17, Capital (formerly Riverdale)

Zone R5C H(18)

Alternatively, you can discover a property’s legal description through the Archives’ collections with assessment rolls and the Land Registry Office copy books; however, this process is more time consuming than consulting the Land Registry Office directly or using geoOttawa.

With a legal description in hand, you will be able to explore the history of your home through the city directories, assessment rolls, fire insurance plans, and other materials available within the Archives’ collections.

City Directories A city directory is an annual publication listing the contact information for home owners and tenants, individuals, and businesses of the City of Ottawa and the surrounding areas. Information for city directories was collected each spring by a team of surveyors and distributed to the public the following autumn for free. Besides the street address and the name of the house owner and its tenants, the surveyors collected information on the residents spouses and older children’s occupations and places of employment.

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While city directories offer great insights into who was living where in Ottawa during a specific year, they are not fully accurate. Since survey information was collected and distributed roughly six months apart, it is possible that tenants had moved or home owners had changed during the summer months. It was also a common occurrence for surveyors to gather information from neighbours if a resident was not home, causing some information to be incorrect.

The Archives’ collections contain City of Ottawa directories from their first publication in 1861 to the present. All city directories are available in the Reference Room Library; early directories from 1861 to 1960 are on microfilm whereas directories from 1961 to 2000 are on the shelves in book form. Between 2001 and 2010, the city directories included only the street listing section; however, by 2011, the city directories returned to their original three section format.

If you are looking for a directory prior to 1861, you will need to consult provincial or national scale directories which are available at Library and Archives Canada.

Search Tips 1. Consult the Street Name Change Index

Located near the microfilm readers, the Street Name Change Index traces street name changes as they were recorded in the City of Ottawa By-Law Minutes. As townships and municipalities were made a part of the City of Ottawa, it was common for street names to change because the original name was already in use.

2. Search backwards

Start with information that you are certain of, either from the present day or from a historical record, and search backwards; this will save you time randomly searching while also discovering the more recent history of your house.

3. Search in five year spans

Searching one year at a time can be very time consuming, therefore it is recommended to search in five year spans. This will enable you to find changes quickly and prevent you from missing them, as would happen when searching a decade at a time.

4. Consult each city directory’s legend

Each city directory is organized slightly differently with section orders and descriptive symbols changing between editions; consult the legend at the beginning of each directory to understand how to read that particular volume.

Assessment Rolls A property tax assessment roll is an annual publication which states the value and owner of a property based on its legal description rather than street address. The information contained in an assessment roll changes over time, with rolls from certain periods providing information

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similar to a city directory, such as the owner and occupants’ profession, religious denomination, age, and number of people living in the household (see Figure 1).

Assessing the value of a property is the best way to use the assessment rolls. By determining increases in property value, you can learn when a house or outbuilding was constructed or a major renovation was undertaken. Assessment rolls can also be used to fill gaps in or cross-reference information found in the city directories.

Assessment rolls for the City of Ottawa and its former municipalities are stored at the Archives; a selection is available on microfilm reels in the Reference Room Library. If you are looking for assessment rolls prior to 1850, you will need to contact the Archives of Ontario in Toronto, ON.

Search Tips 1. Learn the property’s original municipality

Until townships became part of the City of Ottawa, properties were entered into assessment rolls based on their municipality; for example, Nepean, Gloucester, or March/Kanata.

2. Use the assessment rolls finding aid

Located on the finding aid bookshelf, these binders list the contents of the microfilm assessment roll reels by year and will give you an idea of which reel contains the information for your property.

Fig. 1 Microfilm excerpt of Bytown and St. George’s Ward assessment roll, 1950.

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3. Know the property’s legal description or assessment roll number

Searching by legal description or assessment roll number is the easiest way to navigate the assessment rolls; it is possible to search through the rolls based on the owner’s name or street address, but this search method can be time consuming.

4. Be patient

Assessment rolls can be difficult to navigate because of the way that surveyors gathered the information; for example, each side of a street may have its own roll or streets may not be consistently listed in alphabetical order.

Fire Insurance Plans and Maps Fire insurance plans and local atlases allow you to see how a property and its neighbourhood have changed over time. Maps can be helpful in determining when a village became part of the City of Ottawa or when new subdivisions were created. Sometimes, older maps are even decorated with sketches of prominent houses!

Fig. 2 Close-up of the central wards of the City of Ottawa, 1950. For the full map, see the display

maps available in the Reference Room Library.

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Fire insurance plans offer important information when researching a house’s history and development. A residential building’s street address, purpose, storeys, outbuildings, and construction materials are all recorded on a fire insurance plan. Charles E. Goad produced the first insurance plan of the Ottawa area in 1878, which the Archives has on CD. Physical copies of Goad’s 1925, 1948, and 1956 insurance plans, also known as Goad’s atlases, are also available in Reference Room Library.

The Reference Room Library offers a collection of atlases and books containing maps from the City of Ottawa and surrounding areas. The best volumes to start researching with are:

• Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Carleton (including City of Ottawa) by H. Belden & Co.

• Map of the County of Carleton, from surveys under the direction of H.F. Walling by D.P. Putnam

• Ottawa in Maps: Brief Cartographical Story of Ottawa, 1825-1973 by Thomas Nagy • The City Beyond by Bruce S. Elliott

Other maps from early Ottawa include bird’s eye view maps; these maps are artistic representations of the Ottawa cityscape from above. They can be used to help locate and date buildings, but must be used cautiously because the artist may have added or subtracted certain details for aesthetic purposes.

If you are looking for an overhead view of a building prior to 1850, you will need to consult survey maps, which often noted major structures and landmarks, and their related field notes and diaries. To find survey maps from Upper Canada, you will need to consult the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

Search Tips 1. Check the map legend

Each colour on a fire insurance plan represents a different construction material; by examining the colours of your house, you can learn what materials were used to build it and which portions of the home are later additions.

Architectural and Construction Records Many of Ottawa’s early houses did not have an architect and were designed and constructed instead by local builders or the property owner, especially in the years prior to the First World War. During First and Second World Wars, it was common for older homes to be converted into apartments which provided a housewife with a supplementary income while her husband was fighting overseas. It was not after the Second World War that subdivision style housing grew in popularity and architects were hired to design for large developers, such as Minto Construction and Robert Campeau. As a general rule, the older a building is, the harder it will be to find related architectural and construction records.

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The Peter Arends fonds located in the Archives’ collections is an excellent place to search for information on Ottawa-based architects and their projects. Within this fond, there are biographical files, correspondences, and photographs that can help you determine the zones, styles, and eras in which different architects were designing.

Another Archives resource that can provide you more information on your house’s architect or builder is Manuscript Report #268, written by C.J. Taylor for Parks Canada. The Manuscript Report provides additional information on local architects and builders alongside a random selection of early Ottawa buildings.

The Reference Room Library also has several useful books to get you started exploring the construction of your house:

• House Construction Details by Nelson L. Burbank • Ontario Architecture: A Guide to Styles and Building Terms 1784 to the Present by John

Blumenson • Ottawa: A Guide to Heritage Structures by City of Ottawa • Our Architectural Ancestry by John Leaning and Lyette Fortin • Survey of Architectural Records in Ottawa by Heritage Ottawa

Search Tips 1. List the features of your house

The building materials, architectural designs, and interior decor can help you date the construction and any major renovations of your home.

Newspapers Ottawa newspapers have been preserved for future generations on microfilm and are available in the Reference Room Library. Social events, fires, estate sales and auctions, obituaries, and advertisements can offer detailed information that is unavailable in other records. Searching through newspapers can be a time consuming process, but you can potentially find information relating to a house’s occupants, architects, and even images of its construction or early façade.

A good place to start researching your house through newspapers is the Building Ottawa Research Project compiled by Heritage Ottawa. Indexing over 6,000 newspaper articles printed before 1895, this resource assembles all mentions of early Ottawa homes and architects.

For a more extensive search of prominent Ottawa newspapers, the Archives provides online access to newspapers.com and access to microfilm copies in the Reference Room Library. Some of the newspapers within the Archives’ collections are:

• Carp Review: microfilm copies are available of 1905-1930 and unbound originals of 1932-1957, 1960-1965, and 1972-1974

• Le Droit: 1913-1948 on microfilm • Ottawa Valley Journal/Ottawa Farm Journal: 1948-1955 on microfilm

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• The Bytown Gazette: 1836-1845 on microfilm • The Clarion: 1959-1978 on microfilm • The Ottawa Citizen: 1846-1885 on microfilm • The Ottawa Journal: fully accessible on newspapers.com through the Archives network

Search Tips 1. View original or microfilm copies

Digitization software often has difficulty recognizing newspaper fonts and the scanner may omit articles, advertisements, or other information that could be important to your research; therefore, wherever possible, view an original or microfilm copy of the paper.

2. Search the social pages first

Rather than read a newspaper cover to cover, browse through the announcement pages (obituaries, weddings, address changes, etc.), gossip columns (local events, fires, crimes, etc.), and classifieds (advertisements, property listings, etc.) as the information that you are looking for is most likely located in these sections.

Photographs Photographs give the most accurate representation of a house’s previous appearance. While other images may exist, such as paintings, engravings, or lithographs, photograph are less subject to artistic license and interpretation.

Extensive photograph collections donated by Ottawa residents and professionals are within the Archives collections. The Reference Room Library offers resources that can get you started looking for images of your house:

• Photograph Index Cards: a sampling of the Archives’ photograph collections containing sections on Ottawa buildings and streets

• City Blocks, City Spaces: Historical Photographs of Canada’s Urban Growth, c. 1850-1900 by L.A. Koltun

The Archives contains several large collections of photographs that can help you trace the original look of your house. The finding aids for these collections and others are located in the Reference Room Library:

• Andrews-Newton: Photos from The Ottawa Citizen photographers from 1945-1960 • Capital Projects and Infrastructure: Photographs from 1980-2003 • Carleton County Records: Photographs of historical infrastructure • Construction, Renovations, Landscaping, and Heritage: Photographs and negatives

from 1976-1988 • Dave Sproul: Photos from 1895-1990 (mostly the 1940s) • John Evans: Photos from 1963-1993

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• Heritage District: Photographic slides listed by municipal address and heritage landmarks

• Nepean Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC): Photographs and materials from 1979-1995

• Ottawa Suburban Roads Commission: Albums documenting roadwork with houses in the backgrounds

• Sherwood Realty: Real estate photographs from the 1980s

Search Tips 1. Predict where a photo could be stored

Photographs are not organized as a whole but rather as part of smaller fonds or collections; if you can determine who would have donated the photograph or who may have taken the photograph, you will have an easier time locating the images you desire.

2. Search postcards

Streetscapes were popular postcard images at the turn of the century and you may be able to find visuals of historic homes on main streets.

3. Contact previous residents

Don’t get discouraged if you cannot find an image of your house. As all photographs come to the Archives as donations, it is possible that the photographs you are looking for are in a previous resident’s photo album and not yet in the collections. Try contacting the previous resident to see if they have any photographs that they would like to share.

Other Archives Sources

Manuscripts Personal letters, diaries, account ledgers, family histories, and other types of compiled information offer another path to explore the history of your house. Manuscripts offer personal details relating to a house that is otherwise unavailable in official and architectural records. This information can overlap with other records, but it can also provide insights into why a house is located where it is, designed in a certain style, decorated a particular way, and other personal touches that define the house’s history.

The Archives has hundreds of manuscript collections within its holdings relating to individuals, families, and businesses. The finding aids for these collections are located in the Reference Room Library and Archives staff members can guide you through the contents.

Community Associations Several heritage organizations and community associations have shared research with the Archives and the public that may help you research your home.

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A list of heritage organizations in the Ottawa area can be found online at: ottawagraphy.ca/organizations.

Many local community associations also have history pages or on-going projects that may provide you with a starting point for your research; a list of all community associations in Ottawa with their website and contact information can be found at: ottawa.ca/en/residents/parks-and-recreation/partners-and-community-organizations/community-associations.

Several community groups that share their information online and through the Archives are:

• Cumberland Township Historical Society: cths.ca • Gloucester Historical Society: gloucesterhistory.com • Old Ottawa East Association: history.ottawaeast.ca • Old Ottawa South Association: oldottawasouth.ca/historyproject

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Outside Resources If you are researching your house for a building project or historical restoration, you will want to check out the Heritage Grant Program for Building Restoration on the City of Ottawa’s website: ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/planning-and-development/how-develop-property/heritage-grant-building-restoration

To continue researching your house outside of the City of Ottawa Archives, consider the following options:

Archives of Ontario Email address reference@ontario.ca

Telephone number 1-800-668-9933 (Toll-free in Ontario only) 1-416-327-1600

Mailing address The Archives of Ontario 134 Ian MacDonald Blvd. Toronto, ON M7A 2C5

Land Registry Office Email address n/a

Telephone number 613-239-1230

Mailing address Court House 4th Floor 161 Elgin St. Ottawa, ON K2P 2K1

Library and Archives Canada Email address n/a

Telephone number 1-866-578-7777 (Toll-free in Canada and US) 1-613-996-5115

Mailing address Library and Archives Canada 395 Wellington St. Ottawa, ON K1A 0N4

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MacOdrum Library at Carleton University Available online at library.carleton.ca/find/maps

Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Email address n/a

Telephone number 1-800-667-1940

Mailing address Natural Resources Information Centre 300 Water St. Peterborough, ON K9J 8M5

Morisset Library at University of Ottawa Available online at biblio.uottawa.ca/en/find/geospatial-data-and-maps

National Air Photo Library Email address napl@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca

Telephone number 1-800-230-6275 (Toll-free) 1-613-995-4560

Mailing address National Air Photo Library Natural Resources Canada 615 Booth St., Rm. 180 Ottawa, ON K1A 0E9

The Ottawa Room at the Ottawa Public Library, Main Branch Email address OttawaRoom@BiblioOttawaLibrary.ca

Telephone number 613-850-2940

Mailing address Main Library 3rd Floor 120 Metcalfe Ottawa, ON K1P 5M2

Prepared by Erika E. Barre, January 2015