Site icon Past Presence

Finding the Case Files – Using LAC and Héritage to find Japanese Canadian genealogical documents

wanderernolonger
past-presence.com

Fonds, Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property, Héritage Canadiana, first accessed 11 Feb 2020, available at http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_mikan_135184

This blog post continues my research into Japanese Canadian records. If you’re reading this for the first time, you may want to read my earlier post on The Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property.

Last week, I shared with you how to find names in the card catalog. This week, we will dig deeper and I’ll show you how to use the information from the card catalog to find the case files.

What is a card file?

The card catalog contains biographical data on the Japanese Canadians: their names, addresses, file #’s, family members, family member file #’s, and occasionally notations on the status of the person. Think of it like a library card catalog and you have the idea: one goes to the card catalog first to find the file information, then to the file(s).

Library card catalog files. Pixabay License. Accessed 17 Feb 2020 and avaialbe at https://pixabay.com/photos/book-library-education-knowledge-283251/

What is in a Case File?

In my research, I found the Case Files to be collected forms and documents pertaining to the expropriation, intake and internment of Japanese Canadians. They may contain: RCMP reports, statements of property, mortgage documents, house photos, probate, insurance, internee files, storage invoices, transport invoices, letters, legal correspondence, business documents, appraisals, Property Loss Claims, life insurance, newspaper clippings, Prisoner of War letters, Lists of chattels sold, handwritten notes and photos.

The documents vary by file, not all files contain the same documents or the same number of documents. Some files have hundreds of pages, others only a few. The quality of the microfilming varies widely – most are legible but unfortunately, many are too dark to read.

The preceding list is from my own research notes.

What you’ll need

If you have 2 or more screens, this is a good time to use them. To navigate these files, you’ll need 3 windows open:

  1. this post,
  2. this page from Library and Archives Canada, and
  3. this page from Héritage Canadiana.

Step 1 – Visit Héritage Canadiana for the card catalog

Go to Héritage Canadiana. Find your ancestors using the below guide to the 25,000+ cards on file:

C-9299 – 5044 images – ABE to INOSE

C-9300 – 3335 images – INOSE to KOBAYASHI

C-9301 – 5219 images – KOBAYASHI to NAKAO

C-9302 4153 images – NAKASHIBA to SANO

C-9303 5222 images – SANO to URASE

C-9304 3011 images – URASE to ZIEGLER

Step 2 – Gather the information on the cards

Transcribe all the information on the cards for your family of interest. I would advise transcribing / collecting every matching name, even if at first you don’t recognize them. If you like, download a copy for your files (and don’t forget to note the information for your citations).

Be careful to note the file number carefully. It is the key to the Case File.

Step 3 – Go to Library and Archives Canada for the Case File finding aid

Consult the finding aid. You may wish to save a copy. Please note I have not provided it here for you as it is copyrighted material and owned by LAC.

Item #135185 – Case files and index, Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property fonds, Vancouver Office. Library and Archives Canada. Accessed 16 Feb 2020 and available at https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/CollectionSearch/Pages/record.aspx?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=135185&new=-8586197210148470011

Finding Aid 117-6

Finding Aid 117-6 is dated 5 May 1952. The aid will give you a list of the microfilm reels for the fonds of the OCEP, Vancouver Office Records that are located at LAC. Unfortunately, not every reel is currently available at Héritage Canadiana. See below.

Reel list and descriptions

Step 4 – Use the card catalog and the case files

Compare the file numbers from Step 2. If they are included in the Case Files on Héritage Canadiana, there is a Case File to be found online.

You’ll have to go to the links to see these files – I provide the following images as examples of what you will find but am mindful of both sensitive information of people who may still be living AND attempting to find a balance between educating and respecting copyrighted materials.

Example No. 1: SHIGA Hajime

The name SHIGA can be found on Reel-9303 between image #500 “SEKITANI” and image #1000 “SHIMOKURA.” Going to image #500 and scrolling through, we find SHIGA Hajime at image #646. In the top left hand corner, we see file #703.

Card file, SHIGA Hajime, Reel C-9303, Image 646. Fonds of The Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property. Vancouver Office : office files, Héritage Canadiana. Accessed 17 Feb 2020 and available at http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c9303/646?r=0&s=1

Referring to the Case File list above, we can see Case File #703 is in Reel C-9310, image #1089. Case Files #4050, #9987, and #7711 are not available here but you may be able to acquire it from LAC. See below.

Example #2: YASHIMURA Masakiyo

We find YASHIMURA Masakiyo in Reel C-9304, between image #1500 “YAMASHITA” and image #2000 “YOSHIDA, at image #1714. It is Case File #15,487 (upper top left corner).

Card file, YASHIMURA Masakiyo, Reel C-9304, Image 1714. Fonds of The Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property. Vancouver Office : office files, Héritage Canadiana. Accessed 17 Feb 2020 and available at http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c9304/1714?r=0&s=1

To find the Case File, we go to Reel C-9431. This reel begins at Case File #15,222 and ends at 15,618, so I begin looking at image #1000. We find Case File #15,487 beginning at image #1390.

Case File, YASHIMURA Masakiyo, Reel C-9431, Image 1391. Fonds of The Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property. Vancouver Office : office files, Héritage Canadiana. Accessed 17 Feb 2020 and available at http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c9431/1391?r=0&s=1

I found my card file but my case file isn’t here – what do I do now?

Thanks to Victoria for her suggestion on what to do next (see comment below). The reels that are not digitized are currently restricted and only available through an Access to Information Act request. Additionally, they appear to be governed by laws similiar to vital statistics records. You will need either permission from the person if living, or if deceased, either proof of death over 20 years / proof of birth over 110 years ago.

You may also contact the Japanese Canadian National Museum. I met the archivist, Linda Reid, by phone this week and she is friendly, helpful and oh, so knowledgeable.

Will the other case files be available online at some point?

I spoke with Linda Reid, archivist at the Japanese Canadian National Museum in Burnaby, BC. She told me about the Landscapes of Injustice Project, a multi-year, multi-million dollar project on the history of Japanese internment. My understanding from our call is that more and better archives are coming, perhaps as early as 2021.

Postscript

Probably because I am not an archivist, I found it both confusing and maddening to navigate these two sites: Héritage, which had the digital images, and LAC, which had the descriptions but no obvious way to refer to the fonds at The Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property.

It wasn’t until I spent 3 hours patiently going through every hierarchy and sub-file at LAC and building myself a reference map that it began to make sense to me. Of course, once I’d done that, I found the “Finding Aids.” If I keep going, I might even find the original file that led me down this rabbit hole: the file on my grandfather’s store, Wing Wah Company. What I did find interesting is that LAC is doing a lot of work digitizing its finding aids. There are at least 8 sub-sub files that have replaced the old paper finding aids with digital, cross-referenced descriptions. Here’s my rough sketch.

Map of the fonds – Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property

Rough sketch of the fonds of the Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property – Vancouver Office, drawn by Linda Yip of Past-Presence.com; RG117, R1213-0-9-E, Item ID #370, Library and Archives Canada, accessed Feb 11-20, 2020 and available at https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/CollectionSearch/Pages/record.aspx?app=FonAndCol&IdNumber=370

Thank you

This has been quite the eye-opening week. Thank you to the members of my Facebook group Genealogy for Asian Canadians Mika Local, Linda Harms Okazaki, Kimiko Karpoff and Marisa Louie, for your collective thoughts and conversation. Also thank you to Linda Reid, archivist at the Japanese Canadian Museum National Museum for her help this week. Come join the conversation.

Exit mobile version