Peterborough County Genealogy
Township Papers


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            The Township Papers is a huge, strange collection of documents at the Ontario Archives. It is sorted by township, concession, and lot or the equivalent for urban areas. It is a collection of documents that belong to a piece of land and do not obviously belong in any other government files. As a result there is no way to forecast what might be found there. It could be nothing, or it could be a letter giving a multi-generation genealogy. Mostly it covers pre-1870 although some later documents have been added to it.

            The original documents, in RG 1-58, occupy 72 metres of shelf space. They have been microfilmed – 541 reels worth – and are available in the self-serve area at AO, labelled MS658.

            The reel numbers for Peterborough County municipalities are:

                                    Anstruther                                           14

                                    Asphodel        to C2 L1 W1/2            20

                                                            rest                              21

                                    Belmont          to C5 L26 W1/2          32

                                                            rest                              33

                                    Burleigh                                              55

                                    Cavendish                                           none

                                    Chandos                                              71

                                    Douro             to C1 L25                   107

                                                            rest                              108

                                    Dummer         to C4 L23                   112

                                                            rest                              113

                                    Ennismore                                          133

                                    Galway                                               153

                                    Harvey                                                182

                                    Methuen                                             301

                                    Monaghan       to C4&5 L21              307

                                                            rest                              308

                                    Otonabee        to C3 L35                   371

                                                            rest                              372

                                    Peterborough Town                            392 and 393

                                    Smith              to C6 L7                     444

                                                            C6 L7 to WCR L7      445

                                                            WCR L7 to end          446