1851 census - missing Craig family

[Kessa]

Hi
I'm trying to find some family members in the 1851 census - a James Craig born c1802 and his wife Deborah and children who lived in New Carlisle, Bonaventure, Quebec.  I've used Find My Past, Family Search and Automated Genealogy but they don't appear. 

Are some pages of the 1851 census missing?  What district should I be searching?

Any help in finding them would be most welcome.
Thanks
Kerrie
Australia

[oldohiohome]

try Library and Archives, Canada:
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/Pages/census.aspx

It's free.  There are no fuzzy matches on names, so try different spellings if there are any. Quebec was Lower Canada, as explained on the page.

Have you found them before and after 1851 in New Carlisle? In other words, could they have moved somewhere else?

If I get a chance later, I will look at ancestry.com.

I don't know enough about Canadian censuses to tell you if some pages are missing or not.

[Kessa]

Hi

I tried the site you recommend with the same negative result - I used all the spellings I could think of.  James Craig married Deborah Johnson in New Carlisle in 1829.  I've found James in the 1861 and 1871 census at Bonaventure so I'm presuming they lived there in 1851 but of course they may have moved elsewhere for a few years.  Even so there is no sign of Deborah anywhere.

Thanks for your help.

[oldohiohome]

I didn't find them at ancestry.com in 1851. I tried a few different members of the family, last name only, first name only, etc.

Did you mean to say you didn't find Deborah in 1861? She is with the family, age 47, born in Lower Canada, children Alexander, James, Eunice, David, Robert, John, Jane, Henry. All the older sons were mariners. Eunice was a dress maker.

that LAC site isn't working for me this morning or I would try to find the link for her on it.

Her is her indexed record on familysearch.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MM72-V5Y
and here is James
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MM72-VR3

So you can see they were on lines 2 and 3 of the same page. I guess the 1861 census was indexed as individuals only. Even ancestry only displayed James in the results.

[RunKitty]

Hi,

This says that District 4 - Bonaventure records for the 1851 census have not survived.

https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1851/Pages/canada-east.aspx

RK

[Kessa]

Thank you RK for the information that the census returns for Bonaventure have not survived.  That explains the mystery of why James Craig and his family were not found.  Thank you also oldohiohome for your efforts to find the family.

[bbart]

Just in case you haven't found the death of Deborah, it was 14 Feb 1867 in New Carlisle.
I don't know when Valentines Day was "invented", but that's just sad. 

(Only mentioning her death as Quebec recorded them under maiden names, and sometimes get overlooked)

[Kessa]

Thank you bbart, I had found it on an online family tree but it's good to have it confirmed.