Canada Homesteads How To

Note: If the homestead is in what is now the provice of Alberta please use our Alberta Homesteads How To as there may be additional documents available.

Step 1: Start with what you know

You will need to know at least one of the following to get started. Locations are best as they eliminate issues with alternate spellings or transcription errors.

Follow the first option below that matches the data you already have.

• I have the legal description (section, township, range, meridian) of the homestead - Jump to Step 4
• I have the GPS coordinates - Jump to Step 3
• I can find the homestead on a map - Jump to Step 2
• I have the name of the homesteader - Jump to Step 4

For the examples below we will use the homestead of Jay Van Buskirk, located near Chipman, Alberta. References to the example will be highlighted the same as this paragraph.

Step 2: Finding the GPS coordinate of a known homestead location

If you can find the homestead location on an online map, you can use can Bing Maps to get the GPS coordinates. Once you have found the homestead on the map the GPS coordinates are only a click away. If you are selecting a quarter section of land click near the middle of the quarter for best accuracy.

I know Jay's homestead was located on the quarter SW of the intersection of highway 16 and secondary highway 834, so I will click near the centre of that quarter section on the map.

From here we can see Jay's homestead quarter was located at 53.567103, -112.662568 (Latitude, Longitude).

Step 3: Converting GPS coordinates to a Legal Land Description

For the conversion we will use a free tool.

1. Click here to open the converter at Bentek Systems.
   Convert
2. Enter the Latitude and Longitude. If you are using results from Step 2 the Latitude is the positive number, and the Longitude is the negative number.
3. Click Convert.
4. The Legal Description should appear in the results box.

Example: The coordinates of the approximate center of a homestead quarter (53.567103, -112.662568) were entered in the image above and the Convert button produced a result of 15-12-053-19W4.

The Legal Description includes the following values (in order):

• Legal Subdivision
• Section
• Township
• Range
• Meridian

Example: Using the results above we have the Legal Description 15-12-053-19W4 for the quarter centered at 53.567103, -112.662568.

• Legal Subdivision 15 => Part NE (Using the conversion table/image above.)
• Section 12
• Township 53
• Range 19
• Meridian W4

This can be recorded as "NE-12-53-19 W4" or stated as "The north-east quarter of section 12, range 53, township 19, west of the 4th meridian."

Step 4: Search for the land grant and hopefully an original image

Library and Archives Canada has a database of Western Land Grants (1870-1930).

• If you already know the location (section, township, range & meridian) leave the name and remarks fields blank, and enter only these location fields. If your meridian is only a number, add a W before the number.
• If you are searching by name do not fill in the remarks or location fields.

You can search the database here:

Search Land Grants

Example: We will use the Section (12), Township (53), Range (19) and Meridian (W4), a homestead section east of Edmonton.

If you searched by location you will likely get 4 results, as each section was divided into 4 parts (quarters). If you searched by name you could have many more. If you searched by name and did not find the expected result try using only the surname, variations on the spelling of the name, or given name only.

Example: There are four results for the search above, one for each part (quarter) in the section.

Once you have the correct result click on the Item Number.

Example: If you select the first result above you are presented with the following:

The page that appears will give you the following information:

• Name
• Part
• Section
• Township
• Range
• Meridian
• Folio
• Liber
• Microfilm Reel Number
• Item Number

It may also provide an image of the original document, and possibly maps of the area. If the images have numbers on the top click each number to see the different images. To save the image to your hard drive right click on the image and choose "Save Image As..."

If you found the data: Proceed to Step 5.

If you were unable to find the data it is possible they were not homesteaders.

Many of the land sections were not available as homesteads because they were:

• Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) land
• Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) land
• School Lands

You can try our CPR Land Sales Search to see if they purchased land from the CPR.

Unfortunately I do not know of any free online source for HBC or school land sales.

Step 5: Converting Legal Land Description to GPS Coordinates

If you want to find out where this property is located we can find it using the Legal Description. For the conversion we will use another free tool.

1. Click here to open the converter at Bentek Systems.
   Convert
2. Select the LSD (Part), SEC (Section), TWP (Township), RNG (Range), and MRD (Meridian) in the top row.
3. Click Convert.

Example: For this search we will once again use the Part (NE), Section (12), Township (53), Range (19) and Meridian (W4) we found for Jay's homestead in Step 3. We enter these values, click 'Convert' to see the GPS coordinates, and then click 'Map' to see the location. The coordinates can also be entered into the search box of most online map sites, like Google Maps or Bing Maps.