Talk:Fort William First Nation
The Fort William First Nation and Indigenous Services Canada have done the most comprehensive version of this work. To maintain the band registry and verify Indian Status under the Indian Act, families and government clerks have traced lineages directly back to the original 1850 treaty paylists. However, this genealogical data is strictly confidential and used solely for membership governance.
Researchers like James Morrison (who prepared the foundational case study for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples) have mapped out the lineage of key figures like Chief Peau de Chat and his 15-man delegation.
This research is incredibly detailed but usually focuses only on the specific families relevant to a given legal argument, rather than mapping the entire 1850 demographic snapshot.
3. Métis Nation Researchers (Adjacent) Because Fort William was a major Hudson's Bay Company hub, organizations like the Métis Nation of Ontario have done extensive genealogical work to trace the mixed-descent families living around the fort in the mid-19th century. These records frequently intersect with the Jesuit mission registers and HBC account books, but they focus on the Métis population rather than the specific Anishinaabe band members who formally signed the treaty.
There is a massive gap in public history here. The raw archival materials—the RG 10 paylists, Jesuit baptismal registers, and HBC journals—are scattered across different physical and digital archives. Creating a consolidated, digitally accessible framework to map the historical population of Thunder Bay from the ground up would be a first-of-its-kind public resource, finally linking those fragmented archival names into a cohesive community network.
To rebuild the genealogy of those 90 people, the most effective method is to start with the 1850s RG 10 paylists to get the names of the ~15–20 heads of households, and then use the Jesuit baptismal records to flesh out the unnamed women and children in those families.
1. Treaty Annuity Paylists (RG 10 Records) This is your foundational dataset. As part of the Robinson-Superior Treaty of 1850, the government owed annual payments to the band.
What they contain: The Department of Indian Affairs (Record Group 10 at Library and Archives Canada) kept "paylists" starting in the early 1850s. These lists name the head of each household and record the number of women and children in that family to calculate the payout.
The catch: Children and wives were often left unnamed, recorded only as tallies (e.g., "Chief Peau de Chat: 1 man, 1 woman, 3 children").
2. Jesuit Mission Registers (The "Christian Indians") In your previous text from 1859, the document specifically mentions negotiating with the "Christian Indians." This is a crucial genealogical clue. The Jesuit missionaries established the Immaculate Conception mission on the Kaministiquia River, serving the Fort William band.
What they contain: These church registers are the best source for identifying individual family members. They recorded baptisms, marriages, and burials, which often link Indigenous names with adopted Christian/European names.
Where to find them: Many of these early registers are held in the Jesuit Archives in Montreal, though local Thunder Bay diocese archives or the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society may hold transcripts or microfilms.
3. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA) In 1850, Fort William was still a functioning, albeit declining, HBC post.
What they contain: The Fort William post account books and journals (specifically the B.231 series in the HBCA) track debts and furs traded. They contain the names of Indigenous hunters and trappers, often including familial relationships (e.g., "son of...").
4. 1861 Census of Canada West While the 1851/1852 census data for the remote Lake Superior region is famously spotty or lost, the 1861 census did capture some of the Indigenous populations living near settlements or missions.