Why you need a birth or baptism record for every generation, back to your Gen 0
Published 29 October 2026.
A claim to Canadian citizenship by descent is a chain of people, from you back to the ancestor who was born in Canada. We call that ancestor your Gen 0.
Each link in the chain is one birth or baptism record. A record is a link because it names the parents.
How the chain works
Your birth certificate lists your parents. Your parent's birth certificate lists their parents, who are your grandparents. Your grandparent's birth certificate lists their parents.
Keep going until you reach your Gen 0, whose record shows the birth in Canada.
Put the records side by side and the names line up. The parent named on your record is the child on the next record back.
| Person | Their record | Who it names as parents |
|---|---|---|
| You | Your birth certificate | Your mother and father |
| Your mother | Her birth certificate | Your grandparents |
| Your grandfather | His birth certificate | Your great-grandparents |
| Your great-grandmother, the Gen 0 | Her baptism in a Canadian parish | Her own parents |
That is a four-generation chain. Yours may be shorter or longer, and the rule is the same at every step.
What happens when one link is missing
If one generation has no record, nothing on paper shows that the person on one record is the child named on the next.
Two people with the same name, born a few years apart in the same county, are common in old records. A record that names the parents is what tells them apart.
A family tree, an obituary or a census can point you to the right person. None of them is a birth record, so each generation still needs its own.
Your Gen 0's record has a slightly different job at the top of the chain. It shows the birth in Canada, and the parents' names on it tell your Gen 0 apart from anyone else with the same name.
Start with a Gen 0 Check, $49.
Why so many Gen 0s have a baptism, with no birth certificate
Provinces started registering births at different times, and many didn't until the late 1800s or later.
| Province | Births registered from |
|---|---|
| Ontario | 1869 |
| Nova Scotia | 1864 to 1877, then from October 1908 |
| New Brunswick | No guarantee of a registration before 1888 |
| Prince Edward Island | 1906 |
| Quebec | The clergy kept the civil registers until 1994 |
If your Gen 0 was born before those dates, there is often no provincial birth registration to order. The record of the birth is the baptism in the parish register.
Prince Edward Island's archives puts it plainly: researchers there rely on church records, "using baptismal records as proof of birth."
A baptism entry usually gives:
- the child's name
- the date of baptism, and often the date of birth
- the parish, which places the birth in Canada
- both parents' names, often with the mother's maiden name
Our province guides cover where each one is held: Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec baptisms.
Order the version that names the parents
Many offices sell more than one birth document, and the short one often leaves the parents off.
Ontario's plain birth certificate gives the name, date, place and registration number, with no parents. The short forms in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island name neither parent. In the U.S., a short-form or abstract birth certificate often leaves them off too.
A record with no parents can't link to the next generation, even when everything else on it is right.
For every generation, order the long form or a certified copy of the original registration. Check each one for the parents' names before you move on to the next.
Start with your Gen 0
The Gen 0 record is the oldest in the chain, and often the only one that sits in a church register or an archive instead of a government office.
Start with a Gen 0 Check, $49. We look for your Canadian-born ancestor's birth or baptism record and tell you which archive holds it and what it costs to order.
Questions people ask
Do I need a record for every generation, or only for my Gen 0?
Every generation. Each record names the parents, and that is what links one person to the next. Your Gen 0's record shows the birth in Canada, and the others connect that birth to you.
Is a baptism the same as a birth certificate?
No. A baptism comes from the church that performed it, and a birth certificate comes from the province. Where a province did not yet register births, the baptism is the record of the birth that exists.
What if my birth certificate doesn't name my parents?
Order a different version. Ontario, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island all sell a version that names the parents.
Can a census or a family tree take the place of a birth record?
They help you find the right person, but they don't name parents the way a birth or baptism record does. Use them to find the record, then order the record.