# Canada — records retrieval dossier > EasyPassport knowledge base for citizenship-by-descent record retrieval. **General > guidance to confirm on the official pages listed under Sources — not legal > advice.** Fees, URLs, offices, and processing times change; verify before quoting. ## Vital records (birth / marriage / death) - **Holding office:** Civil birth, marriage and death records in Canada are held at the PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL level by each of the 13 Vital Statistics offices (there is NO federal/national civil registry). Examples: ServiceOntario / Office of the Registrar General (ON), Directeur de l'état civil du Québec (QC), Vital Statistics Agency (BC), Vital Statistics / Alberta Registries via authorized agents (AB), Vital Statistics (MB, SK, NS, NB, etc.). Library and Archives Canada (LAC) explicitly does NOT hold most birth/marriage/death records and routes requesters to the provinces via its provincial/territorial/religious archives links page. Older (historical) records are transferred to the province's ARCHIVES (e.g., Archives of Ontario, BC Archives) once past the privacy cutoff. - **How to request:** Order from the relevant PROVINCE where the event was registered — not from Ottawa. Each province runs its own channel: an online ordering portal (e.g., ServiceOntario for Ontario, the BC Vital Statistics Agency e-service, Quebec's DEC online service via clicSÉQUR), by mail with a paper application, or in person / via an authorized third-party agent (Alberta issues through private registry agents). For events registered before civil registration was transferred to archives, request from the provincial archives instead. For a birth abroad to Canadian parents, IRCC issues a citizenship certificate rather than a birth certificate. - **Online portal:** No single national portal — see *How to request* (often per-region / per-office). - **Who may request:** Recent records are ACCESS-RESTRICTED: generally only the person named, a parent/guardian, spouse, next of kin, executor of an estate, or an authorized legal representative may order a certificate. Records become open 'genealogical'/'historical' records available to anyone (or to any descendant) only after each province's statutory closure period elapses — roughly ~100+ years for births, ~75+ years for marriages, and ~50–70 years for deaths, varying by province — at which point they are usually held by the provincial archives. LAC notes each province 'has its own rules regarding access.' - **Cost:** Set per province; typically about CAD $15–$45 per certificate (long-form/certified copies cost more than short-form). Genealogical/archival copies from provincial archives are priced separately. - **Timeline:** Varies widely by province and channel — from a few business days (online, expedited) to several weeks by mail; archival genealogical searches can take longer. - **Language:** English or French (Canada's two official languages). Requests to Quebec's Directeur de l'état civil are handled in French; most other provinces operate in English (New Brunswick and federal-facing services are bilingual). - **Notes:** Civil registration in most provinces began in the late 1800s / early 1900s; before that, events were recorded by churches, municipalities, townships or counties (see historical records). CRITICAL IRCC-specific rule: do NOT send Quebec birth or marriage certificates issued BEFORE January 1, 1994 — IRCC directs applicants to obtain a re-issued certificate from the Directeur de l'état civil du Québec instead. Short-form 'pocket-size' certificates are often not accepted for identity/authentication; order the long-form. ## Historical & church records (before civil registration) - **Parish / church:** For the pre-civil-registration era, church/parish registers (baptisms, marriages, burials) are the primary vital records. These are held mostly by the churches/denominations themselves or by religious/diocesan archives, NOT by LAC — e.g., the Archives of the Diocese of Rupert's Land (Anglican) and the Centre du patrimoine / Société historique de Saint-Boniface (Roman Catholic, Manitoba). For French-Canadian/Catholic Quebec, the Drouin Collection and indexes such as the Répertoire alphabétique des mariages des Canadiens-français, 1760–1935 and the Fichier Loiselle (Roman Catholic marriages c.1750–1900s, Quebec/NB/eastern Ontario/New England) are the standard finding tools. LAC holds only a 'very small' collection of parish registers plus indexes (Kipling Collection for the Red River/Manitoba, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Williamstown 1779–1817, Gravelle and Jacques-Henri Fabien card indexes). - **National / state archive:** Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Ottawa — https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives.html — via its Genealogy and family history portal and Collection search (recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca). LAC holds census returns, marriage bonds/licences for Upper & Lower Canada 1779–1858 (RG4-B28, RG5-B9), Parliamentary Acts of divorce 1841–1968, immigration and naturalization records, and Home Children files. Many microfilms are digitized free on Héritage (heritage.canadiana.ca) and Canadiana (canadiana.ca). For provincial-era records LAC directs users to the provincial/territorial archives (Archives of Ontario, BC Archives, BAnQ for Quebec, Provincial Archives of Alberta/Saskatchewan, etc.). - **Notes:** Because Canada was settled under multiple colonial jurisdictions, the right repository depends on region, era and religious denomination. Knowing the family's denomination and the pre-Confederation place name (e.g., 'Upper Canada'/'Canada West' = Ontario; 'Lower Canada'/'Canada East' = Quebec) is essential. Records are in the original language of the register (French, English, Latin, or other). ## Apostille / legalization - **Competent authority:** Global Affairs Canada — Authentication Services Section (Ottawa) is the FEDERAL competent authority that issues apostilles for Canadian public documents. In addition, five provinces have their OWN competent authorities that apostille documents issued or notarized within their province: Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. All other provinces and territories (e.g., Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, PEI, and the three territories) have NO provincial competent authority — their documents must be apostilled by Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa. Provincial and federal apostilles have equal validity. - **URL:** https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/about-a_propos/services/authentication-authentification/index.aspx?lang=eng - **Process:** By mail/courier only — there is NO in-person and NO expedited service at Global Affairs Canada. Submit the original long-form document (or a notarized certified copy where accepted) with completed request form EXT2165 and a prepaid return label/self-addressed envelope; mail to the Authentication Services Section in Ottawa. Documents issued in AB/BC/ON/QC/SK can instead be apostilled faster by that province's own competent authority. Verify any issued apostille at the online e-register (apostille-gac.powerappsportals.com) which covers GAC, Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan. - **Cost:** Global Affairs Canada charges NO fee for authentication/apostille. Provincial competent authorities and any notarization are priced separately. (You do NOT need to hire a third-party company; processing time is the same.) - **Notes:** Canada is a Hague Apostille Convention member — the Convention entered into force for Canada on January 11, 2024, replacing the old red-stamp 'authentication + consular legalization' chain. Apostille member countries now accept ONLY the apostille, not the old red Global Affairs stamp. IMPORTANT for descent applicants: an apostille is for using CANADIAN documents ABROAD; the IRCC citizenship-certificate application itself (a Canadian authority accepting Canadian documents) does NOT require an apostille, and Canadian law does not require foreign documents to be apostilled before use in Canada. The apostille matters (a) when you must submit your resulting Canadian documents to another country, or (b) for FOREIGN civil records used in the descent chain, which must be apostilled by the ISSUING country, not by Canada. GAC apostilles ONLY original long-form vital-statistics certificates or certified copies issued by the vital statistics office itself — NOT short-form pocket certificates and NOT funeral-home death certificates. > **Apostille authority — verification (✓ confirmed against HCCH, 2026-07):** Fact 1 (apostille authority) is fully CONFIRMED against two official sources: HCCH's Canada Art. 6 Competent Authority page (https://www.hcch.net/en/states/authorities/details3/?aid=1199, updated 2025-08-13) and Global Affairs Canada's authentication step-1 page (dcterms.modified 2026-04-09). Both confirm the federal competent authority is Global Affairs Canada — Authentication Services Section (JLAC), 2421 Lancaster Road, Ottawa (HCCH lists it as "Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada"), plus five provinces with their own competent authorities: Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan. All other provinces/territories (Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, PEI, Yukon) route to Global Affairs Canada. Equal validity confirmed; Canada is party to the Apostille Convention since 2024-01-11. No correction needed. Fact 2: the vital-records portal URL supplied by the research was an EMPTY STRING, so there is no URL to verify — portalUrlLive is necessarily false. Note there is no single national vital-records portal in Canada; vital records are issued per-province (e.g., ServiceOntario, BC Vital Statistics Agency, Quebec Directeur de l'etat civil), so a per-province portal must be supplied. ## Translation - **Requirement:** Any supporting document not in English or French must be submitted to IRCC with a full English or French translation. This applies to the citizenship-certificate (proof of citizenship / descent) application. - **Notes:** The translation must be done by a certified translator (in Canada, a member in good standing of a provincial/territorial translators' association, e.g., ATIO, OTTIAQ). If the translator is NOT a Canadian certified translator, the translation must be accompanied by a sworn affidavit in which the translator swears to the accuracy and completeness of the translation (sworn before a notary public / commissioner of oaths). IRCC will NOT accept translations done by the applicant or by a member of the applicant's family. The original document (or a certified copy) must accompany the translation. ## Emigration & naturalization (the chain-break) - **Emigrant / exit records:** Canada historically kept essentially NO systematic emigration/exit records — there is no Canadian 'departure' register. LAC's holdings are ARRIVAL/immigration records (Immigration Branch RG76: passenger lists and border-entry records). To trace a Canadian ancestor who LEFT Canada, you generally look in the DESTINATION country's arrival records — most commonly US border-crossing records (the St. Albans District 'Soundex' manifests of entries from Canada, c.1895–1954) and US passenger lists, and UK/other inbound passenger lists. Within Canada, census returns (searchable free at LAC) are the main tool for confirming where and when a person was last present before emigrating. - **Destination naturalization:** THE CHAIN-BREAK QUESTION for Canada is whether the Canadian ancestor LOST Canadian/British-subject status before the descendant was born — a 'Lost Canadian' scenario Bill C-3 is designed to remedy. Historically a Canadian could lose status by naturalizing in a foreign country, and before 1947 a wife's and minor children's status automatically followed the husband/father (LAC's certificate 'Series' K,H,I,F,G reflect exactly these loss/repatriation cases). So check whether the ancestor naturalized ABROAD: for the United States use the USCIS Genealogy Program and NARA (naturalization petitions/certificates); for the UK use The National Archives. Because IRCC now reviews eligibility under the amended Act, the safest course is to APPLY FOR A CITIZENSHIP CERTIFICATE and let IRCC determine status rather than self-assess a historical loss. - **Notes:** The Canadian Citizenship Act came into force January 1, 1947; before that Canadians were British subjects and those born British subjects did not need naturalization. Most citizenship/naturalization records from 1854 to present are held by IRCC (request via a 'Search of citizenship records', $75, or an ATIP request); LAC holds only early registers (Upper Canada 1828–1850, Montreal Circuit Court 1851–1945) plus the indexed Canada Gazette / Secretary of State naturalization lists 1915–1951 (names + certificate numbers used to order the actual file from IRCC). ## Gotchas - Vital records are PROVINCIAL, not federal — there is no national birth/marriage/death registry and Library and Archives Canada does NOT hold them. Ordering from the wrong province (or expecting Ottawa to have them) is the #1 mistake; you must identify the exact province of the event and order there, and older records may sit at that province's ARCHIVES rather than its Vital Statistics office. - Quebec pre-1994 trap: IRCC explicitly refuses Quebec birth or marriage certificates issued BEFORE January 1, 1994. You must obtain a re-issued certificate from the Directeur de l'état civil du Québec — an old parish-issued Quebec certificate will get the application returned. - Apostille competent-authority confusion: only Alberta, BC, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan apostille their own documents; EVERY other province/territory must go to Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa. Sending a Manitoba or Nova Scotia document to a provincial office (or a Quebec document to Ottawa unnecessarily) causes rejection/delay. And the old pre-Jan-2024 red-stamp 'authentication' is no longer accepted by Apostille-member countries. - Short-form vs long-form: Global Affairs Canada will NOT apostille short-form 'pocket-size' birth certificates or funeral-home death certificates — only long-form originals or certified copies issued by the vital statistics office. Order the long-form from the start. - Pre-1947 status loss ('Lost Canadian') and the 1947 boundary: before January 1, 1947 Canadians were British subjects, married women's and minor children's status followed the husband/father, and foreign naturalization could break the citizenship chain. A superficially 'Canadian' ancestor may have lost status before the next generation was born — this must be investigated, not assumed. - Name-spelling drift and changed place names in historical records: LAC warns that names appear in many spelling variants (use wildcard searches) and that a person's 'country of nationality' reflects political borders of the time (e.g., a place now in Ukraine may be recorded as Austria or Russia), which routinely defeats exact-match searches of naturalization and parish indexes. ## Sources - [IRCC — Change to citizenship rules in 2025 (Bill C-3, first-generation limit)](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/act-changes/rules-2025.html) - [IRCC — Get proof of Canadian citizenship (citizenship certificate hub)](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship.html) - [IRCC — Apply for a citizenship certificate: Who can apply](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship/eligibility.html) - [IRCC Help Centre — Documents to send with a citizenship-certificate application (incl. Quebec pre-1994 rule + translation rule)](https://ircc.canada.ca/EnGLish/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=371&) - [IRCC — Search of citizenship records: About the process ($75, 17-month processing)](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship/search-records.html) - [Global Affairs Canada — Authentication of documents (apostille, Authentication Services Section, Ottawa)](https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/about-a_propos/services/authentication-authentification/index.aspx?lang=eng) - [Global Affairs Canada — Authentication FAQ (provincial competent authorities AB/BC/ON/QC/SK; long-form only; no funeral-home certs; free; Apostille in force Jan 11 2024)](https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/about-a_propos/services/authentication-authentification/faq.aspx?lang=eng) - [Library and Archives Canada — Birth, marriage, death and divorce records (LAC does not hold civil registration; routes to provinces)](https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/collection/research-help/genealogy-family-history/birth-marriage-death-records.html) - [Library and Archives Canada — Citizenship and naturalization records (1828–1850, Montreal Circuit Court 1851–1945, Gazette lists 1915–1951, 1947 boundary, certificate series K/H/I)](https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/collection/research-help/genealogy-family-history/immigration/citizenship-naturalization.html) --- General guidance, not legal advice. EasyPassport is a document-organization tool, not a law firm. Confirm your own case with the relevant authority or a qualified professional.