On December 6, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax harbour. Unfortunately, one of those ships was carrying TNT and exploded. The explosion was the worst man-made disaster in the history of the world, only eclipsed by the dropping of atomic bombs decades later. Almost 2000 people died, and around 9000 were injured. If you’re researching ancestors in Halifax, it is almost certain that they were affected by the Halifax Explosion.

If your ancestor’s death date was the day of or shortly after the explosion happened, it is likely they perished as a result of the explosion. Even if you don’t have a direct ancestor who was killed as a result of the explosion, if you had ancestors living in Halifax at that time, they will almost certainly have other family members who did.

One great resource is the list of people that died in the Halifax explosion. It will give you the address of the person, how they died, who identified them and where they are buried. It even shows you the page they are on in the Halifax Explosion Death Registration Book.

When you know the address of the person who died, you can then look at historical maps, especially this one, if they were near ground zero, or this one, if they lived a little further out. According to this article, most people living within 1.6 miles of ground zero would have been instantly killed by the force of the blast. A note about addresses is in order here: the area that was completely destroyed by the blast was rebuilt, and so the current numbering is likely different. In order to figure out approximately where they lived, check out the city directory for 1917. Old directories often have listings by street name, divided up by cross streets, and this is the case here. Even the area not devastated underwent a civic address re-numbering, so check the City of Halifax Former Civic Address Cross-Reference to convert the address in 1917 to the current-day address that you can search for using a map.

As genealogists, researching the historical events that impacted our ancestors lives brings us a much richer understanding of them, so I highly recommend checking out some of the many articles and books out there written about the explosion, as well as holdings at the Nova Scotia Archives, Library and Archives Canada, and the Halifax Municipal Archives.