Local History & Genealogy

Guide to City Directories of Toronto: Decoding Abbreviations

This guide provides explanations of many abbreviations for personal names, occupations and other words used in 19th-century Toronto city directories. 

 

A 
ab  above
acct  accountant
adv  advertisement
ag implts agricultural implements
agt  agent
al  alley
Albt  Albert
Alex  Alexander
app  apprentice
appr  appraiser
arch/archt architect
Archd  Archibald
assce  assurance
assn  association
asst  assistant
attdt  attendant
av/ave  avenue

B 
b  boards
barr  barrister
bdg  boarding
bdg h  boarding house
bds  boards
Benj  Benjamin
bet  between
bg  building
bgemn  baggageman
bkbndr  bookbinder
bkkpr/bkpr bookkeeper
bkr  baker
bkslr  bookseller
bld/bldg building
bldr  builder
blksmith blacksmith
br  branch
brklyr  bricklayer
brkmn  brakeman
brmkr  boiler maker
btchr  butcher
btlr  bottler

C 
c  corner
c h  custom house
cabt mkr cabinet maker
Can  Canadian
carp/carpr carpenter
carr  carriage
cash  cashier
Chas  Charles
chauf  chauffeur
chkr  checker
clk  clerk
clnr  cleaner
Co  company
coll  collector
com  commission
com mer  commission merchant
comp  compositor
comr/commr commissioner
cond/condr conductor
confr/conftr confectioner
contr  contractor
cor  corner
Corp  corporation
cres  crescent
ct  court
ctr  cutter

D 
d gds  dry goods
Danl  Daniel
dept  department
depy  deputy
dlr  dealer
do  same place or same street
dom  domestic
Dom  Dominion
drftsmn  draftsman
drsmkr  dressmaker
dsgnr  designer

E 
e  east
e s  east side
Edwd  Edward
elect  electrician
electro  electrotyper
elev oper elevator operator
Eliz  Elizabeth
emp  employee
eng/engr engineer
engr  engraver
est  estate
examr  examiner
exp  express

F 
fcy  fancy
fnshr  finisher
Frdk  Frederick
ft  foot of
ft  foot
furn  furniture
furng  furnishing

G 
GTR  Grand Trunk Railway
GWR  Great Western Railway
gard/gdnr gardener
gds  goods
genl  general
Geo  George
geol  geological
gro  grocer
gts furngs gents' furnishings

H 
h  house
h  householder [general owner]
hdwre  hardware
Hert  Herbert
hlpr  helper
hsekpr  housekeeper

I 
imp  importer
implts  implements
ins  insurance
insp  inspector
insts  instruments
Intl  international

J & K 
Jas  James
jwlr  jeweller
kpr  keeper

L 
l/la  lane
lab  labourer
landrs  laundress
lino  linotype
litho  lithographer
lndry  laundry
ltd  limited

M 
mach hd  machine hand
mach/macht machinist
mar  market
Margt  Margaret
mech  mechanic
mer  merchant
mfg, mfr, mfy manufacturing -urer -ory
mgr  manager
mkr  maker
mkt  market
Mkt gdnr market gardener
mldr  moulder
mlnr  milliner
mlstr  maltster
mng dir  managing director
mntr  mounter
moto  mortorman
mssr  messenger
mus  musical
mus tchr music teacher

N 
n  north
n  near
n e  northeast
n s  northsouth
n s   north side
n w  north west
NR  Northern Railway
NRC   Northern Railway Company
nr  near

O 
off  office
Ont  Ontario
op/opp  opposite
opr  operator

P 
pc  police constable
Parlt  Parliament
pat med  patent medicines
pckr  packer
ped/pdlr peddler
photo/photr photographer
phy  physician
pl  place
plmbr  plumber
plshr  polisher
plstr  plasterer
pntr  painter
pntr  painter
pr  proprietor
pres  president
prin  principal
prntr  printer
prof  professor
prop  proprietor
provns/provs provisions
prsfdr  pressfeeder
prsr  presser
publr  publisher

R 
r/res  resides [not owner]
r  rear
rd  road
Regd  Reginald
rep  representative
repr  repairer
rest  restaurant
ret  retail
Richd  Richard
Robt  Robert

S 
s  south
s e   side entrance
s s  south side
Saml  Samuel
sch tchr school teacher
sdlr  saddler
se  southeast
sec  secretary
sec hd goods second hand goods
sew mach sewing machine
shpr  shipper
slsldy  saleslady
slsmn  salesman
smtrs  seamstress
soc  society
sol  solicitor
sq  square
Stand  Standard
statr  stationer
staty  stationery
stenog  stenographer
stero  stereotyper
stkpr  stock keeper
stmftr  steamfitter
stn  station
stu/studt student
suprvsr  supervisor
supt  superintendent
surg  surgeon
sw  southwest

T 
tchr  teacher
tel  telepraph
tel opr  telephone operator
telph  telephone
ter  terrace
Thos  Thomas
tlr  tailor
tlrs  tailoress
tmstr  teamster
tnsmth  tinsmith
Tor  Toronto
trans  transportation
trav  traveller
treas  treasurer
trk drvr truck driver
twp  township

U & V 
uphol  upholsterer
v pres  vice president
vet  veterinary
vet sur  veterinary surgeon

W 
w  widow of
w  west
w s  west side
wd wkr  wood worker
wh/whol  wholesale
w'hse  warehouseman
wid  widow
wks  works
Wm  William
wrehsemn warehouseman
wtr  waiter
wtrs  waitress

Go way Back to School with historical yearbooks

Back to school is a very busy time for students and their families, with Labour Day marking the annual return to elementary school, high school, college or university. Often forgotten in the rush to start a new school year is the valuable family history and biographical information to be found in that standard  year-end keepsake, the school yearbook.

North York Central's Canadiana department on the 6th floor collects an extensive range of yearbooks from across Ontario, mainly from high schools and universities, plus some colleges. Over time these provide a remarkable record of education in Ontario, as well as detailed information about students and teachers.

Genealogists and local historians find very useful the photos, names, dates, club and team activities, awards and myriad other details these yearbooks offer. This kind of information about the school careers of family members, ancestors, or people who grew up to be well known can be very difficult to find in other sources.

Just for fun, I looked up a few famous Torontonians to see what can be found about them in Canadiana's yearbook collection. Some of the results are below:

	A 17-year-old Tim Horton, long before his doughnut days, starred for the 1948 St. Michael's College School "Majors" From: The Tower 1948, St. Michael's College School, p.42-43
Social activist June Callwood (top row, third from left) in a Grade 12 picture from Brantford Collegiate. From: The Hello 1941, Brantford Collegiate Institute, p.45
Journalist Robert Fulford and legendary pianist Glenn Gould were in the same Grade 9 class in 1946. From: The Muse 1946, Malvern Collegiate Institute, p.157

To date, projects to digitize Canadian school yearbooks and post them online have been scarce. Here are a couple of good examples:

• St. Michael's College School (Toronto) - digitized from 1910-2009
• Internet Archive - schools include Ashbury College (Ottawa), Trinity College School (Port Hope), and Selwyn House School (Montreal)

If you are keen on family history, you may be surprised what yearbooks can reveal. Follow these links to see the range of titles held in Canadiana:

• High School yearbooks
• University yearbooks
• College yearbooks

Canadiana staff welcome donations of yearbooks from any Ontario school and any year. So don't worry about those embarrassing high school photos, dig out yearbooks you no longer want, and bring them to the 6th floor of North York Central. Family history researchers will thank you!
 

Memories of Locke Branch

This Saturday's presentation of a Heritage Toronto plaque at Toronto Public Library's George H. Locke Memorial Branch brings back a flood of fond memories. 

Back in the 1970s, I was one of the "Ladies of Locke," the apt moniker that Branch Head Helen McNeil used for the all-female staff.  Locke Branch then had Toronto Public Library's largest collection (71,051 books in 1974) and, with 414,000 circulations, it was second only to Deer Park as the busiest of TPL's 28 branches.  Without automated circulation and catalogue systems, online databases and Internet, or self-service check-out, it took about 20 staff (pictured here at Locke's 25th anniversary in 1974) to operate the branch. Today, Locke does roughly the same business with far fewer staff.

Named to commemorate Toronto Public Library's esteemed chief librarian from 1908 to 1937, George H. Locke's spirit still prevailed.  His name literally was (and still is) carved in stone above the Yonge Street entrance.  His life-sized portrait (right), painted by his friend Curtis Albert Williamson in 1933, was installed on the west wall of the Adult Reading Room, where it remains today.  

Staff was instructed to answer the telephone with the full, "This is the George H. Locke Memorial Branch, how may I help you?" not a curt, "Locke Branch." Marjorie Bullard, the formidable assistant branch head who began 43 years with TPL in 1930, regularly would invoke Locke's direction,"Experiment. If it works, tell us - if it fails bury it."            

Locke Branch was a breeding ground for future library leaders.  Many staff went on to serve as branch heads and senior administrators at the Toronto Public Library.  Lynne Howarth, a student page, eventually became dean of the library school at the University of Toronto.  She has established the Marjorie Fleming Mentoring Fund with the Ontario Library Association.  It is named after her own mentor, Marjorie Fleming, the longtime head of the Boys and Girls Department at Locke Branch.   

Locke Branch was where I got my start in local history. I'll be back this Saturday before the plaque presentation to lead a Heritage Toronto walk of "Lawrence Park: A Garden Suburb" (home of many Locke borrowers) with my old Locke colleague and co-author, Lynda Moon.   

Hope to see you there!

LABOUR DAYS: Glimpses of the History of Labour in Ontario

September 5th will be celebrated as Labour Day across Canada.  To commemorate this national holiday, the Special Collections Centre has arranged an exhibit of photographs and printed ephemera related to Ontario's labour history. Here's a sampling from the exhibit which can be viewed on the 4th floor of the Toronto Reference Library until the end of the month.

 

                     Labour Day parade along Queen St West near Givins St., 1905

 

    Notice for a Depression-era demonstration to protest the arrest of Communist

                                                             and labour leaders

 

                     Ribbon worn by marchers in the Labour Day parade in 1897

 

      Ticket to the annual supper of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, 

                                                                   1876

 

 Early Ontario labour history is a special focus of the ephemera collection and donations of materials like the ones featured here are welcomed by Special Collections.

 

 

 

 

 

Guide to Passenger Lists & Immigration Records

Getting Started

Passenger lists were created for most ships arriving at Canadian ports. These lists contain useful information such as a person's age, country of birth, last place of residence and occupation.

However, there were no comprehensive nominal lists until after 1865.

A few pre-1865 passenger lists that exists are available at Library and Archives Canada.

To obtain records for passenger lists after 1935, please follow the instructions on the Library and Archives Canada website.

Searching the Library Website

Suggested Keywords

• [province] immigrants
• [ship's name]
• shipping directories

Suggested Titles

Shipping Information

• Lloyd's register of shipping, 1760-1960
• A list of trading vessels in the Maritime fur trade, 1785-1825
→More on shipping registers

Immigrant arrivals in Canada  

Passenger Lists

• Doukhobor ship passengers lists,1898-1928
• Nova Scotia immigrants to 1867
• Passengers to New Brunswick: the custom house records, 1833,3437 & 38
→ More passenger lists

Indexes

• Index of passengers who emigrated to Canada between 1817 & 1849
• Upper Canada naturalization registers, 1828-1850
• Passenger and immigration lists index [multi-volume index to American and Canadian lists with supplements. Also known as Filby's].
→ More indexes

Immigrant arrivals in United States

Passenger Lists

• Emigration from the United Kingdom to America: lists of passengers arriving at U.S. ports
• Italians to America: lists of passengers arriving at U.S. ports
• Migration from the Russian Empire: lists of passengers arriving at the Port of New York
• Passenger arrivals at the Port of Baltimore, 1820-1834
→More passenger lists

Indexes

• An alphabetical index to Ulster emigration to Philadelphia, 1803-1850
• Wuerttemberg emigration index
→ More indexes

Departures from England

• American migrations, 1765-1799.
• Emigrants from England, 1773-1776
• An index of English immigrants based on obituaries and death notices in Prince Edward Island newspapers 1835-1910
• A list of emigrants from England to America, 1682-1692
• Omitted chapters from Hotten's original lists of persons of quality and others who went from Great Britain to the American plantations, 1600-1700
• Original lists of emigrants in bondage from London to the American Colonies, 1719-1744
• The original lists of persons of quality ... who went from Great Britain to the American plantations 1600-1700
→More passenger lists

Departures from Ireland

• An alphabetical index to Ulster emigration to Philadelphia, 1803-1850
• A chronicle of Irish emigration to Saint John, New Brunswick, 1847
• The convicts and exiles transported from Ireland, 1791-1820
• Irish emigrants in North America
• Irish emigration lists, 1833-1839: lists of emigrants extracted from the Ordnance Survey memoirs for Counties Londonderry and Antrim
• Irish passenger lists, 1803-1806: lists of passengers sailing from Ireland to America extracted from the Hardwicke Papers
• Irish passenger lists, 1847-1871 : lists of passengers sailing from Londonderry to America on ships of the J. & J. Cooke Line and the McCorkell Line
→More passenger lists

Departures from Scotland

• Fife convict transportees, 1752-1867
• The Lanark Society settlers : ships' lists of the Glasgow Emigration Society, 1821
• Later Scots-Irish links 1725-1825
• The original Scots colonists of early America. Supplement, 1607-1707
• Scottish transatlantic merchants, 1611-1785
• Scots in the USA and Canada, 1825-1875
• Scots-Irish links, 1575-1725
→More on emigration and immigration

Periodicals

• Periodicals Source Index (PERSI) (available in Toronto Reference and North York Central only)
• Genealogical Periodical Annual Index

Home Children

• Fegan's homes newsletters. vol. 10, The red lamp 1913-1920
• Fegan index of home children
• Golden bridge: young immigrants to Canada, 1833-1939
→More titles on the home children

Using Online Resources

Recommended Websites

• Immigration Records and Ships' Passenger Lists
• Home Children (Canadian Immigrants)

Recommended Databases: Passenger Lists by Date

Ancestry Library Edition (available in any Toronto Public Library branch)

• 1865-1935 Ships' Passenger Lists (also available free on Library Archives Canada)
• 1908-1935 Border Entry Records
• 1919-1924 Immigration Form 30 – Border Entries
• 1919-1924 Immigration Form 30A – Ocean Entries

Library and Archives Canada

• Pre-1865 (incomplete) Immigrants to Canada
• 1828-1850 Upper Canada/Canada West Naturalization Records
• 1832-1937 Immigrants at Grosse Ile
• 1865-1900 Quebec City Passenger Lists Index
• 1889-1949 General Registers of Chinese Immigration
• 1898-1922 Li-Ra-Ma Russian Consular Records [index] (Passport-Identity  Papers)
• 1925-1935 Immigration Records (Nominal Index) 
• Home Children 1869-1930 (partially complete)

Ontario Archives

• 1831-1892 Toronto Emigration Office Registers / Hawke Papers (from 1865)

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

• 1816-1838 New Brunswick Ports
• 1845-1852 Irish Famine Migration to New Brunswick

In Library Resources

The Canadiana Department at North York Central Library has an extensive collection of microfilmed passenger lists to official Canadian ports. Some records are available for eastern US ports including New York.

If your ancestor was a juvenile or came over with a sponsoring agent like Dr. Barnardo, check the finding aid Home Children and Juvenile Immigration. Records include:

• Central Registry Files Index – Soundex Index  of Children's Names, 1892-1932
• Central Registry Files – Listed by Organization, 1873-1950
• Juvenile Inspection Lists – Chronological 1874-1939
• Inspection Reports – Alphabetical List 1913-1932

If your ancestor came over in early 20^th century as a domestic or farm labourer, consult the binder "Supplementary  Immigration and Passenger List Information" for details on the microfilm reels available. This same binder includes information on the microfilm reels on Deportation from Canada  1893 – 1977.

 

Canadiana Department, North York Central  416-395-5623

Humanities and Social Sciences, Toronto Reference Library 416-395-5577