O. Canada

Let me just say that dealing with genealogy can be frustrating. Case in point, where in the world is my maternal grandfather from?

I have documents that say he was born in Ontario. I remember seeing a document that specifically placed his birth in Stratford, Ontario, but I cannot find that information in the documents I have scanned. My mother often said the same thing, and at one point she and Dad took a vacation to the town so she could see it. 

In other documents that I have, Gramp's place of birth is listed as Chicago. A census document listing him reports that his father was English but doesn't give the father's name. Canada was not independent from England when he was born. The country was formally established in 1867, four years before my grandfather's birth, creating four provinces from what had been three colonies, Canada, Newfoundland and New Brunswick. Canada was split in two to form the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. 

Had great-grandfather lived in one of the original three colonies, he'd have been a British subject, hence English, assuming his ancestry wasn't Welsh, Irish or Scottish. If Grandpa was indeed born in Stratford, he would have been an immigrant, and I assume he came to the U.S. before the 1891 Immigration Act, a modification of the Immigration Act of 1882, the first federal legislation on immigration that eventually led to our current system.

Before that legislation, immigration standards were lax at best, and in the cases of Canada and Mexico pretty much ignored. Canadians and Mexicans were free to cross the border pretty much at will and did. We'll return to these immigration acts next week. 

Back to Canada. After the four provinces were established, Canada became a semi-independent "dominion" of Great Britain. They would not become a fully independent Commonwealth nation for some time. 

Dominion Day, marking the founding of the nation and celebrated on July 1 each year, would became Canada Day some 50 years after the 1931 passage of the Statute of Westminster, granting the nation its independence. 

When Canada became a nation in 1867, its constitution was established by the same legislation. Because of this, the constitution could not be amended unless the British Parliament approved the changes. This was mostly not a problem, but the 1931 legislation did not provide for a change of procedure in regard to the constitution. 

A series of events, including the push for Quebec's independence finally culminated, in 1982, in a Canadian constitution that did not require the British Parliament's approval. That same year the Canadian Parliament changed Dominion Day to Canada Day. 

As to whether I'm Canadian or English or pure American on that side of the family, I can't say definitively, but I tell people I'm part Canadian just because.