Digitization of the Chinese Head Registers
How Two Historians Have Paved the Way For Geneological Research
Jun 6, 2009
Although many of the stories of loneliness and segregation of Chinese during the restrictive bachelor society have yet to be told and some will unfortunately never be heard, quite recently, two historians from the University of British Columbia, Dr. Peter Ward and Dr. Henry Yu took on a project which addressed the long ignored history of the Head Tax in Canada. Ward, a recognized scholar whose book White Canada Forever is a foundational work on anti-Chinese and anti-Asian agitation in Canada, and Yu completed a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) project that digitized the over 96,000 entries in the Chinese Head Tax Register compiled between 1885 and 1949.
The Library and Archives Canada Digital Head Tax Database
This comprehensive Head Tax database contains entries for every person who either paid the Head Tax or registered as an exemption during that period, with a wealth of personal information such as village and county origins, physical characteristics, and the conditions of travel and arrival in Canada. Although a limited name and date search for this database will be made publicly available through Library and Archives Canada’s online website, there is much more information that can be used for genealogical and family history research on Chinese Canadian history. Using the newly digitized Head Tax Register as the digital spine for research on early Chinese Canadian history, Ward and Yu are at the cutting-edge of historical research on Chinese migrations to Canada.
Digitizing The Chinese Head Tax Register Between 1885 and 1949
In digitizing over 96,000 entries in the Chinese Head Tax Register compiled between 1885 and 1949, the comprehensive database contains entries for every person who either paid the Head Tax or registered as an exemption during that period, with a wealth of personal information such as village and county origins, physical characteristics, and the conditions of travel and arrival in Canada. Although a limited name and date search for this database will be made publicly available through Library and Archives Canada’s online website, there is much more information that can be used for genealogical and family history research on Chinese Canadian history.
References to Chinese immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1885 and 1949
Because the Government of Canada created documents specifically for new arrivals from China often with meticulous detail of each migrant, the Head Tax database offers a research tool that provides access to 98,361 references to Chinese immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1885 and 1949. While Library and Archives Canada holds only a small sample collection of the certificates, both the certificate number and amount paid were recorded in the General Registers of Chinese Immigration. Such information from these records include:
- age;
- certificate number;
- place of birth;
- occupation;
- date and port of arrival in Canada;
The General Registers of Chinese Immigration, 1885-1949
Three Centres ofThe General Registers of Chinese Immigration, 1885-1949 list all immigrants of Chinese origin arriving in Canada between 1885 and 1949, all of which have been digitized and indexed by the Department of History at the University of British Columbia for the purpose of genealogical use. Containing registers collected from three primary centres for which Chinese immigrants had landed and departed, the Head Tax Database includes: the Port of New Westminster, Newfoundland Register of Arrivals and Outward Registrations, and the Chinese Immigration Service in Ottawa headquarters.
As a result of blending technology and history, the hidden history of the Head Tax in Canada can finally be redressed and studied properly by historians and genealogists.
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