Submissions to Council : 1791-1841.

            The series is an interesting example of early record-keeping systems.  The Clerk of the Executive Council in Upper Canada assembled all papers pertaining to a case, gave them an endorsement, which was equivalent to a modern file title, selected a key word from that endorsement and filed the papers in numerical sequence under the letter with which the key word began.  The alpha-numeric reference was entered in the margin of the Minute Book opposite the relevant minutes relating to the case.  Hence, the Minute Books can be used to discover the existence of a submission, although not its preservation.  The numerical sequences were begun anew at arbitrarily selected points (about 1818, 1825, 1828, 1831, 1837 and 1819), quite possibly for storage purposes due to space constraints in the clerk's office.  The selection of key words was not always logical, further complicating the matter.  The year as well as the alpha-numeric sequence must be noted when a search is carried out.
            

            Petitions, correspondence, reports and other documents submitted to the Executive Council of Upper Canada in support of matters brought to its attention, 1791-1841, as well as reports of sub-committees of Council and of the Law Officers of the Crown.

            

            National Archives of Canada Finding Aid 901 (reels C-9812 and C-9813) is the index which provides access to the material and is available in the Loyalist Collection.

An inventory description and the microfilm shelf list are available on the microfilm and in print and as a PDF in the electronic finding aids section.
The shelf list must be used to convert the volume and page references given in the index to the microfilm reel numbers of the textual records.