The 1906 Census was gathered by the government of Canada specifically for the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Governments were interested to track how the settlement of the prairies was proceeding. The census officially began on June 24, 1906 and when the census was complete it revealed that the population of the newly designated provincial capital Regina, Saskatchewan had swelled from 2,250 five years earlier to 6,129 people!

The website for Library and Archives Canada has more information about the 1906 Census.

The Germantown Area

You may be interested to know that that a single area of Regina called Germantown might be important for you to search for Romanian ancestors. See below that the 1906 Census Sub-Districts of 37B and 37C overlap the area which will eventually become Germantown.

Learn more about it in the article: Germantown 

1906 Census

The 1906 Census Sub-Districts cover only the area where the young city existed.  Please note that in 1906, the growing city of Regina did not have have modern street addresses. Read below to learn more.

Map Overlays

This is what the 1906 Census Sub-Districts that pertain to the city of Regina look like when you overlay them on the modern map of Regina.  Also overlayed on the map is the historical area of the city nicknamed Germantown.

Why have I done this work of creating these overlays? There are a small number of reasons:

• Each census uses different naming and numbering for Districts and Sub-Districts so if you have an address you want to check you can waste a lot of time figuring each census out
• Websites that make these census' available to you on-line have not done this work for some reason - my gift to you
• Handwriting on a census can be nearly impossible to read sometimes unless you know what it might be saying.  Once you have an idea for what valid street names or addresses might be for a Sub-District you may suddenly be able to read what looked to be unreadable.
• Just because different websites have tried to make the census' searchable does not mean that the people who indexed them could read them any better than you.  This goes for the names of the people who appear on the census, the addresses and just about any other field captured.
• I found that each time I had to go back to a census to look for someone new I had to re-learn things about the census or the Sub-District.  What you see here could be considered to be notes that I consider to be important to get back up to speed.

The Map

Click on the coloured areas on the map to to see which one corresponds to which Census Sub-District.  Enlarge the map or zoom as required.

Block Numbers

In the 1906 Census for the the city of Regina it seems that the young community had introduced street names but not house numbering.  As a result you might find your ancestors living in a building/house that occupies a numbered Lot (not always given), on a numbered Block on a named street.

In the map below, I have taken all of the addresses that appear in the four Regina Sub-Districts (37A, B, C and D) and overlaid them on the modern city. This has proved very helpful to me in deciphering some of the handwriting.  Give it a try!

For example, if you look at the first page of the census for Sub-District 37A (Ancestry.ca) you will see that the family of Andrew Menzies lived at (no Lot number given) Block 197 on Halifax Street.  If you click to expand the map I built below you will see that you can view a list of all of the numbered Blocks in the 1906 Census.  Find "Block 197" in the list, click on it and Block 197 will highlight on the map. You will see that Block 197 corresponds to what is today, the eastern side of 1400 Block Halifax Street.

1906 Census in the News

The 1906 Census in Regina was highly political for a couple of reasons, power and money.

With more and more people moving to settle the provinces, the census would be used to confirm the number of MP's who would be needed to serve them.  For people who had interests in Federal positions it was in their interests for the Census to count as many people as possible so that more positions could be created. Secondly, larger populations would mean that the Federal government would send more funding and would approve more projects in the regions.

As if people weren't concentrating on how to maneuver for Federal money, they were also very focused on increasing land values.  Many people, whether they lived in the region or not, had purchased vast amounts of land on speculation that its' value would rise quickly.

Regina politicians had secured an important win by having their city proclaimed as the capital of Saskatchewan which would have spurred land values.  Regina already had the railway. They were desperate to attract industry, land developers and most of all, residents. The faster the population could be shown to be growing, the faster investment and population would flow.  The faster the flow, the wealthier the speculators would become.

Interestingly, even though Regina was already declared to be the capital of Saskatchewan there were vocal people elsewhere in the province, whom I assume had invested in land and industry in those regions, who continued to work to prove that the capital must be moved.  The census was one such indicator that was used.  Regina politicians were under a lot of pressure to defend their city from the attacks of other cities such as Moose Jaw and Saskatoon who wanted to overturn Regina's designation as the capital.  Regina had to be shown by its' representatives as growing and larger than the rest, if not in the present, then in the future.

This would become more pronounced in the next ten years.  Please see also the articles: 1911 Census: Regina and 1916 Census: Regina.

The Leader, Regina SK, Jun 9, 1906	The Morning Leader, Regina SK, Jul 27, 1906	The Leader, Regina SK, Aug 10, 1906, Page 1	The Leader, Regina SK, Sep 11, 1906, Page 5

Eighteen Columns of Information

I enjoy the last few columns in this census because they contains counts of livestock.  This is especially interesting for me because we are talking about the growing city of Regina in these pages.  The fact that some people had horses, cows, pigs and sheep in their yards within the city helps me add some colour to the picture I imagine when I think about what life must have been like. 

1. Number of family in order of visitation
   1. A count of the family or household.
   2. Two or more families that occupied the same house were numbered separately.
2. Names of each person in family
   1. Entered with the surname (last name) first. If applicable, a middle initial could be entered.
3. Relation to head of family
   1. Head of the family (or household or institution) was entered as "Head", with the remaining members and their relation to the head (e.g. wife, son, daughter, servant, boarder, lodger, partner, etc.).
   2. Persons in an institution could be described as officer, inmate, patient, prisoner, pupil, etc.
4. Sex
5. Marriage Status
   1. Married "M", single "S", widowed "W" or divorced "D"
6. Age
   1. For people one year of age and over, the age that the individual had reached on their last birthday was entered.
   2. For children under one year of age, the month and date of birth (e.g. Aug. 5) was entered.
7. Country or place of birth
   1. For those born outside of Canada, the name of the country (e.g. England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, etc.) was noted.
   2. For those born in Canada, the name of the province or territory was noted.
8. Year of Immigration to Canada 
9. Post Office Address
   1. For the head of the family only. However, if the person was being counted with their family under the de jure system, their other address was to be entered in this column.
10. Section
    1. The number of the section of land.  Please see article: Dominion Land Survey
11. Township 
    1. The number of the township. Please see article: Dominion Land Survey
12. Range
    1. The number of the range. Please see article: Dominion Land Survey
13. Meridian
    1. The number of the meridian. Please see article: Dominion Land Survey
14. Horses
15. Milk cows
16. Other horned or meat cattle
17. Sheep and lambs
18. Hogs and pigs

Regina in the Canada Census

• 1911 Census: Regina 
• 1916 Census: Regina 
• 1921 Census: Regina