NFLD-LAB-L Archives

From: "Muriel M. Davidson" <>
Subject: [NFLD-LAB] Let's Help GEORGE - and Ourselves!!!
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 12:12:34 -0400

To all:
There is an old saying: "Let George do it" -- but read the following
letter from a Canadian living where his work requires -- hopefully, we
will be able to change the saying to "Let's HELP George and ourselves".

I will gladly answer queries from both sides of the border - Canadians
send your letters DIRECT - Free Postage. Non-Canadians may send to my
address.

I hope to hear from many,
Muriel M. Davidson <>

September 1, 1999

The Honourable Lorna Milne
Senate of Canada
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A4

Dear Senator Milne,

I am writing to you to voice my support for opening the post-1901
Canadian census records. As a Canadian citizen living in the U.S.A., I
do not have an MP to whom I can write and express my opinion. I am told
that you welcome letters from outside the country on this important
subject.

As a professional genealogist, I live in New England and work in Boston
at the New England Historic Genealogical Society where I am the Canadian
specialist. I have led genealogical research tours for the Society to
different parts of Canada; authored and edited books on Canadian
research; and lectured all over North America on Canadian genealogical
research. I cannot stress to you strongly enough how important it is to
both our countries to have these records open to family historians and
to
scholars alike. I find the emphasis on confidentiality to be very
bizarre, especially when we are dealing with quite innocuous information
concerning people long gone. There is not much point to any
government's gathering information about its people if its people cannot
see and use it.

Of the more than 18,000 members of the genealogical society where I
work, a very high percentage have Canadians roots and connections and
come to our library - a major centre for Canadian genealogical research
- to do as much research as they can there prior to travelling to Canada
on holiday or on research trips. Inability to identify places of origin
of their families would, and does, cause them great frustration and
often they cancel their plans to go to Canada to look up relatives or do
more research, thus affecting tourism and all that that implies. It
also, of course, causes a breakdown in communications and leads to a
lack of understanding between peoples, so important to our two
countries and our family historians.

There are many reasons why access to the census records are important -
as many reasons as there are people who may want to use them. The idea
that Government can keep this data and not allow access to it is oddly
paternalistic, bordering on fascist.

Canada has been called the best place in the world to live, and our
government one of the most responsive to its citizens' wishes. Now is
not the time to allow bureaucrats to horde information about our
families to which we have a moral right of access even if, at the
moment, we do not have a legal right of access. I am sure we can count
on you and other fair-minded Members to persuade Government to do the
right thing.

With every good wish, I am

George F. Sanborn
24 Thornton Street
Derry, New Hampshire 03038-1628
U.S.A.
(tax-payer of Hartsville, Prince Edward Island)
<>
CC: The Hon. John Manley and elected PEI Members of Parliament

This thread:

• [NFLD-LAB] Let's Help GEORGE - and Ourselves!!! by "Muriel M. Davidson" <>