Highlighting a Sask History Resource

My immediate family roots are in Saskatchewan.  My parents were born there as were my siblings and myself.  My grandparents were homesteaders in the province along with one set of my husband’s grandparents and his great grandmother.

Because of our close ties to this province I’m always looking for resources that will aid my genealogy research.

One such resource is the Saskatchewan Settlement Experience.

The Sask Settlement Experience is a beautifully designed website of historical photographic, audio and video content about the settlement of this prairie province.

It features the time line of the history of the province from before 1870 to the 1930s.  This is a wonderful resource for those interested in what homesteading might have been like in the province…Or perhaps for those  with an interest in the fur trade or the Riel Rebellion?   There are photographs from many different eras in the province.

Sections include:

• Aboriginal Peoples

• Steps to a Homestead

• Settlement Patterns

• Life on the prairies

• Agriculture

• Labour and Economic Growth

• Transportation and Communication

• Women

• Education and religion

• Teacher’s Resources

A search on my hometown of Nokomis brought up two entries.  One a photograph of a blacksmith and the other an audio recording of Olga Felskie.

“Born in 1905, Olga’s parents immigrated from Polish Russia in 1900 to settle in the Nokomis area. In this section of the interview Ms. Felskie recalls, with great detail, what it was like to be a student in a small rural school. Olga eventually became a teacher, and her story is an excellent example of how important education was to the immigrants.”

The Saskatchewan Settlement Experience is brought to us by the Saskatchewan Archives and the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society with funding from the Canadian Heritage and Library and Archives Canada through the Canadian Memory Fund/Canadian Cultural Online Program.

==> Go here to visit the Saskatchewan Settlement Experience

Opened my email this morning to discover Online Classes has included my Luxegen blog in the genealogy category of the 100 Great Twitter Feeds for History Geeks.  What a pleasant surprise!

The categories they used were:

• General

• Media

• Educators and Students

• Documents and Publications

• Museums

• Genealogy (auspicious group of fellow awardees.  It is an honour to be included here).

• Historical Tweets

• Miscellaneous

Thank you very much to Online Classes for this award!

Hands up if your first forays into genealogy online were with RootsWeb?  Maybe you go back as far as the ROOTS-L mailing list? Or net.roots?  If you do, you’ve been online for a long time!  Even before the web was really a web.

The internet, and genealogy on the Internet, have both been around far longer than many online genealogists realize.   In 1969, four computers were linked together and the network was born.

About a decade later, newsgroups and the USENET were began.  By 1983, the newsgroup net.roots, named after the popular Roots miniseries, had been launched, and with it, genealogy on the internet.

According to “An (Almost) Unexpurgated History of Rootsweb” by Dr. Brian Leverich in an article written way back in June of 1998 (okay…I know that’s not THAT long ago,  unless you are talking internet years), the RootsWeb Surname List began in 1989 and it was his wife Karen Issacson, who maintained it.

From these auspicious beginnings we now have millions of online resources both personal and commercial. Despite all of the online resources it is important to remember that they represent only a small fraction of the genealogy and family tree resources available.

Offline Genealogy Resources

Remember to check out the following resources OFFLINE:

• Public and University Libraries (arrange interlibrary loans to get resource material)
• Genealogical societies (can offer expert help and research guidance along with resource libraries)
• Archives (State, Province, National)
• Court records
• Gazetteers
• Church Records
• Notarial Records
• Maps from the times your ancestors lived in the area
• Land Records
• Legal Records
• Education Records
• Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)
• Divorce Records
• Cemeteries
• Newspaper Obituaries

This isn’t a comprehensive list by any means.  RootsWeb is still a good place to start searching for the surnames in your family tree, but please remember that many genealogy finds will also be found OFFline.
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Related:

RootsWeb General Search

RootsWeb SSDI

RootsWeb Surname List

With all the chatter about the upcoming and newly released Genealogy/History television shows, I thought I’d mention a long time running Canadian favourite “Ancestors in the Attic”.

I share with you below a short blurb from the show.

Hosted by Jeff Douglas, Ancestors in the Attic is a Gemini-nominated documentary series about ordinary people and their extraordinary stories.Produced by Toronto-based Primitive Entertainment for History Television it takes Canadians on a road trip across Canada and on a worldwide search for their ancestors. The series uncovers the personal dramas that lay in everyone’s family tree, from a woman’s search for her birth parents in Switzerland, to the discovery of long-lost family in Belarus, to a journey through the battlefields of Italy. Ancestors in the Attic provides unexpected, emotional and often life-changing answers to the genealogical questions that haunt many Canadians.

History.ca does a good job of sharing their research process and creates a fine story of the individuals featured and their search for their ancestors. See the History.ca webpage for show times.

It IS a good year for Genealogy TV.  Check out ALL of the family history shows and support them by watching.  The buzz is good for everyone and will generate more excitement about genealogy and family history.  More interest equals more family connections for us all.

2010 Genealogy/History TV shows:

Ancestors in the Attic on History Television (Update – this show has been discontinued)

Faces of America on PBS

The Generations Network by BYU Television

Who Do You Think You Are on NBC  (premiering March 2010)

Filled with excellent historical articles it occurred to me that there may be genealogists and family historians that are not aware of this resource.

Legion Magazine is a remembrance and a celebration of our Canadian Soldiers both current and past.

Since 1928, Legion Magazine has honoured those Canadians who have served their country by publishing in print short death notices for Royal Canadian Legion members with military backgrounds, Canadian war veterans and Legion members with police service.  There is a searchable online database from 1987.

And with equal importance, the stories are being told.

Edward John Kerr’s War Medals, WW II, Canada

I share here a brief overview of the current issue.

• Navy 100th Anniversary 1910 – 2010  Launching the Service – complete with historic photos, a series of articles document the history of the Canadian Navy.

(Any Canadian sailors in your family history? This article can give you a lot of background material.)

• Canadian Reflections: Your Money or Your Life – a true story of a stagecoach robbed!  Held up at gunpoint on the Queen’s Highway.   Mid-1850s.

(Are you related to the robbers or heroes in this story?  Or perhaps your ancestors came from the same geographic area.  It is a fascinating story.)

• Canadian Military History in Perspective:  Army. Cold October Rain. Rimini, Italy on September 21, 1944.

(Did you have a relative there? )

• Canadian Military History in Perspective: Airforce. The Roar of The Meteor.  A story of historic jetfighter aircraft.
• Battle Honours of the Canadian Forces.
• Assignment Afghanistan. Field Notes from the front.  A prelude to a larger article to appear in the March/April issue about the brave men and women currently serving.
  

Articles such as the ones found in Legion Magazine can give you background into the times and conditions of the day and can enhance and enrich your genealogy and family history research.  Subscriptions can be obtained with a Legion membership and many of the articles can be found on line at Legion Magazine.

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[Editor: Joan supports Legion Branch #290, in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, in remembrance of her father Edward Kerr (1919- 1983)  who was a long time member.   In the Second World War, Ed served with the 27th Anti Aircraft Regiment, went into action in Italy with the 5th Division, 89th battery and the Lanark and Renfew Scottish Regiment of Canada. Go here to contact Joan or leave a comment below. ]