Find a person's petition information.
On the above page, click the "Search: Database" link at the bottom of the top left column to open a new window to search the land petitions.
Here you can enter surname, given name(s) and place. You can leave a field blank. An example search might be to simply enter the surname Lake and nothing else. That search brings back 183 results. And you will see that it really is a "contains" search, since some of the results are for Blake and Blakey and other names that include "lake".
Once you have found someone whose petition image you want to see -- say Richard Lake's 1798 petition in the list of Lake hits -- note (a) the microfilm number and (b) the bundle and (c) the petition number.
In the case of Richard Lake, his 1798 petition for Sidney, Thurlow & Ameliasburgh is on (a) microfilm reel C-2805 in (b) bundle "S Misc." where it is (c) the 69th petition in the bundle.
Keep this window open so that you can refer back to it.
Find the petition images.
Now, in the column at the top left of the search hits window, right-click on the "How to Obtain Copies" to open a new window that takes you to the that section of the main page. In that section, click on the "online" link which will take you to the "ARCHIVED - Microform Digitization" web page that lists the first 50 land petition microfilm numbers.
This will take you to the first screen of microfilm numbers. The microfilm number you want may be on a later page. Once you find the microfilm number you want, click on that number.
In our Richard Lake example, we want microfilm number C-2805, which is not on the first screen. So click the "next" link and repeat until you see C-2805 (which is on the 6th screen as the 261st reel listed). Then click on the C-2805 link.
This takes you to the first of many images on this reel (1,308 image for C-2805 in our example). It starts you out in the "View JPG" mode. But for searching, I prefer to use the "View PDF" mode. You can toggle between the two by clicking the link which now reads "View PDF" above the image.
In the image, scroll it all the way to the bottom where you will see a large "PUBLIC ARCHIVES / ARCHIVES PUBLIQUES / CANADA" at the bottom. What you want is just above that in much smaller type. You want to see which bundle the microfilm reel is starting in. Depending on what bundle contains your petition, you may need to skip forward through the images until you reach the correct bundle.
In the case of our Richard Lake example, it is the "S" Bundle Miscellaneous, which is exactly the bundle that we want for Richard Lake.
Now we need to find the desired petition (number 69 in our example) in this bundle. The petition numbers are handwritten at the top of most pages, sometimes followed by letters (e.g. "20b"). The way that I start my search depends on whether I am already in the right bundle or not. If I need a later bundle, then I may enter a number like 555 in the "Page" box and then click the "Go" button.
In the Richard Lake example, we are already in the right bundle, so I will pick some random lower number, say 55. And by a sheer coincidence I wind up at page "20b". So I am in the 20th petition, and I need to be at the 70th. I estimate an average of about 4 pages per petition. So we need to move ahead by 49 petitions. So I estimate I will need to move 196 more pages ahead. So I add 196 to the 55 where I am at, which gives me 256. So I put that in the page box and see that I am at petition 83's page 83a. BE SURE TO DOUBLE CHECK AT THE BOTTOM THAT YOU ARE STILL IN BUNDLE "S Misc". So I have gone 24 petitions too far, which means that they are averaging fewer pages per petition. So I will try an estimate of 3 pages per petition, so that I want to go back 72 pages from page 256, which means 184. So I put 184 in the page box. And now I am at the first page of petition 64 in the "S Misc" bundle. Not all petitions have these first pages - they tend to be used only for the larger petitions. So I need to go ahead some ... say to page 202. And here we have the first page of bundle 70. So we know that the last page (69c) of Richard Lake's petition is on the prior image. So click the "<" link to go back a page.
Download the petition images.
Now you need to step through each page of the petition and download the image. You could download each page as a PDF, but what we really want is an easy way to put all the pages together into a single PDF. And for me that means downloading them as JPG files and then using my PDF writer software (I use the free PDFill.) to print all of the JPGs into a single PDF file. So I begin by switching back to the "View JPG" mode at the top of the window with the images.
Just right click anywhere on the image of the original page in the "View JPG" mode, and click "Save Image As" and save it to your hard drive.
Then use the "<" link or the ">" link, as need be, to step through each page of the petition that you want and download each page. Keep an eye on the top, so that if the petition number changes, you know you are done.