40% of Canadians don't know what role Canada played in WWI
New survey from family history website Ancestry.ca
TORONTO, July 31, 2014 /CNW/ - As the world prepares for the Centenary of the First World War, a new survey reveals that 40 per cent of Canadians do not know what role Canada played in the Great War. The survey, from family history website Ancestry.ca, also highlights that a further eight per cent of Canadians say they didn't know that Canada participated in the First World War at all.
The national survey of more than 1,000 Canadians, conducted in June 2014, shows that even with the upcoming anniversary, there is much Canadians do not know about the war that some historians say brought Canada into maturity as a nation. Indeed, nearly half of Canadians (46 per cent) say they weren't aware that the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War is occurring this summer.
"In many ways, the First World War represents the moment when Canada first made its mark on the world stage and really came of age as a nation," said Lesley Anderson, family historian and Ancestry.ca representative. "I think the 100th anniversary of the start of the War will give Canadians a tremendous opportunity to learn about the impact the War had on this country, as well as what role their own ancestors may have had in it, regardless of their country of origin."
Looking at the survey results provincially, Manitoba has the largest percentage of individuals who are unaware of what role Canada played in the First World War, at 67 per cent, followed by Nova Scotia at 52 per cent and Quebec at 46 per cent. The provinces with populations that have the greatest knowledge of Canada's role in the War include New Brunswick (62 per cent), Ontario (57 per cent) and Alberta (55 per cent). Incredibly, 12 per cent of British Columbians and 11 per cent of Albertans do not know that Canada participated in the First World War at all.
Other survey results
- 36 per cent of Canadians have no idea if they had any family who fought in either of the World Wars
- More than a quarter (26 per cent) of Canadians have never heard of the poem "In Flanders Fields" written during the First World War by Canadian Lt. Col. John Alexander McCrae
- Of those who are familiar with the famous poem, almost half (49 per cent) are unaware that McCrae was Canadian
- More than one-third of Canadians say that with the upcoming centenary, they are more interested now than they were previously in the lives of their ancestors
- Overall, Canadians know very little about their own ancestors, with one in five saying they don't know the maiden name of either of their grandmothers, and almost a quarter saying they don't know the occupations of either of their grandfathers
The First World War in numbers:
| 619,636 |
Total enlistments in the Canadian Expeditionary Force throughout the war |
| 424,589 |
Number of enlistments who served outside of Canada |
| 26.7 |
Average age of members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force |
| 20,000 |
Number of men to join before their 18th birthday (the minimum age of requirement to go overseas was 19) |
| 22% |
Increase in Canada's population following the war (comparison of the 1911 and 1921 Census of Canada) |
| 60,000 |
Estimated number of Canadian casualties during the war |
| 173,000 |
Estimated number of individuals wounded during the war |
| 80,000 |
Estimated total number of men who didn't return to Canada (60,000 died, 20,000 took discharge in United Kingdom) |
| 25 |
Canadians executed during the war for various offences: desertion, cowardice or murder among them |
Most common occupations of Canada's First World War soldiers
- Agriculture
- Labour
- Transportation
- Clerical
- Building trades
- Professional
Percentage of enlistments by province (born in)
| British Columbia |
2.22% |
| Alberta |
1.04% |
| Saskatchewan |
1.49% |
| Manitoba |
5.76% |
| Ontario |
48.01% |
| Québec |
21.30% |
| New Brunswick |
7.66% |
| Nova Scotia |
10.22% |
| Prince Edward Island |
2.25% |
| Yukon Territory |
0.01% |
| Northwest Territories |
0.02% |
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, Ancestry.ca has created a custom webpage on its site to help people search for their ancestors who served. New collections have been added to the millions of existing First World War records and, for a short time, Ancestry.ca is providing free access to the British Army Medal Roll Indexi. Visit www.ancestry.ca/world-war-1.
About Ancestry.ca
Ancestry.ca was launched in January 2006 and is part of Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource with approximately 2.7 million paying subscribers across all its websites. More than 14 billion records have been added to the Ancestry.com sites and users have created more than 60 million family trees containing more than 6 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site www.ancestry.com, the company operates several global Ancestry international websites along with a suite of online family history brands, including Archives.com, Fold3.com, Newspapers.com, and offers the AncestryDNA product, sold by its subsidiary, Ancestry.com DNA, LLC, all of which are designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.
*SurveyMonkey survey of 1,025 Canadians conducted in June 2014.
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i Access to the records in the Medal Index Cards collection will be free until 31 December 2014 23:59 p.m. EDT. To view these records you will need to register for free with ancestry.ca with your name and email address. We will then send you a user name and password to access the records. After the free access period ends, you will only be able to view the records in the featured collections using an ancestry.ca paid membership.
SOURCE: Ancestry.ca
Jeri Brown, Media Profile, [email protected], 416-504-8464
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