CHAPTER VI 
ORIGINS AND INTERMARRIAGE IN THE REGISTRATION AREA 
IN CANADA 
INTRODUCTION 
The study of the varying extents to which intermarriage has occurred between the 
different stocks included in the population of Canada is as complex as it is important. The 
jrst type of difficulty arises because of the limited data which are available. The census 
does not publish a separate classification of the married population by origins; consequently 
a direct approach to the study is impossible. An alternaiive method would be to analyze 
the, marriages in the census year; but even were the records of origins included in the 
provincial official notices of marriage, it is doubtful whether the intermingling of different 
stocks, as indicated by marriages in a given year, would be representative of the tota 
amount of intermarriage which had taken place. The tendency would be to over-emphasize 
it, due to the fact that as the length of residence of the immigrant population in Canada 
increases, the extent of intermarriage also increases. . It would obviously be wrong to 
assume that the rate applying in 1921, which marriage data for that year might supply, 
would be applicable to people who were in this country ten or twenty years ago and con- 
tracted their marriages in those years. Further, on account of the varying inflow of 
immigrant peoples, the marriage data of any given year would be unreliable as a guide to 
the total amount of intermarriage. This is especially true of the decade 1911-1921 with its 
great fluctuations in immigration. However, even if these objections did not exist to the 
use of marriages as an index of assimilation, such procedure is impossible. since informa- 
sion as to origin is not available in the marriage returns. 
The alternative source of information, on which of necessity this study has been based, 
is the origin of the parents of children born in the Registration Area of Canada in the year 
1921, as given in the “First Apnnal Report on Vital Statisties” of the Dominion Bureau 
of Statistics. 
The first limitation imposed in using these data is the fact that as the province of 
Quebec compiled and published its own vital statistics at that time, the reports of thst 
province are not comparable with the figures for the other provinces as compiled and edited 
by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Since 1926, the vital statistics for Quebec are on the 
same basis as those of the other provinces under the Bureau, but the present study for the 
census year 1921 can embrace only that part of Canada which at that time was included in 
the Registration Area. Another difficulty is the variations in the amount of detail in which 
origin classifications are given in the various tables of the Census and Vital Statistical 
Reports, and the absence of certain analyses important for a comparative study of this 
nature. The limitation of space in the census and the exnense involved in compilation 
and publication account for this. 
Offsetting these drawbacks the use of the origin of fathers and mothers of children born 
in 1921 has many advantages. First, it is not open to the objections applying to the use of 
marriage data. The parents of the children born in 1921 are much more representative of 
the married population with tespect to origin than are the young people who were married 
in that single year. Further, such data are not so sensitive to the inflow of immigrant 
population. And finally, there were over three times as many births as marriages in the 
year 1921. The actual number of births reported in the Registration Area in the year of 
the census was 168,979. For some 22,000 of those, the origins of the parents are not given. 
Over 12.000 of that number occur in Alberta, making the data for that province less 
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