This morning's blog post from Gail Dever says that the 1931 Census of Canada is already indexed and searchable on Ancestry! (To see the questions asked, look at Dave Obee's page here.)
I immediately searched Ancestry for hubby's great uncle, the renowned band director of the 48th Highlanders of Toronto. Sure enough, this newly-released 1931 Census record was my top search result.
What did I learn about Capt. John Daniel Slatter (1864-1954)? First, I learned that the handwriting recognition software does an amazingly decent job of interpreting names. Shown in screen capture above, the names in this family are absolutely correct except for Capt. Slatter's--because the software mistook the parenthetical notation (Captain) written after his surname for a middle name "Contan." Not a big deal, but something to watch for.
Aside from that, Capt. Slatter made Canadian $1,200 as Director of Music for the Highlanders in 1930. He owned his 10-room home, valued at Canadian $15,000, had a radio, and the birthplaces of his wife and children are consistent with what I already have documented.
Interesting to discover that he misremembered his mother's birthplace as "Ireland." In fact, I've found her noted in multiple UK Census records as being born in London of Irish-born parents.
Away I go down the rabbit hole to find more Canadian ancestors in this newly-released Census!
Hint: If you want to search only that 1931 Census, you can look under the Search drop-down menu along the top of the Ancestry home page. Under search, go to the Ancestry Card Catalog and there you'll find the 1931 Census of Canada, as shown in the image at top of this post. Wishing you luck finding your Canadian ancestors, too.
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