Alberta Canada Genealogy and History Guide

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Alberta, Canada

Contents 1 Alberta Canada Genealogy and History Guide 1.1 Alberta Information 1.2 Beginning Research 1.3 Background 1.4 Resource Links 1.5 Cultural Groups 1.6 Local Research Resources

Alberta Canada Genealogy and History Guide

This is a locality guide to help with your family history and genealogy research in the Alberta region of Canada to include birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Alberta Information

• First Peoples include: Blackfoot, Cree, Dene (Chipeqyan), Assiniboine, Sarcee and Stoney.
• It was called Rupert's Land and was part of the territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670.
• Due to the expansion of the fur trade and European settlement, another group formed called Métis. They are descendants of mixed Indigenous-European families.
• The Government of Canada acquired all the land that once belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869.
• Between 1870 and 1905, the area was part of the Northwest Territories.
• The arrival of the railway in the mid-1880s saw an influx of immigration from the United States, Great Britain and Europe, and migrants from eastern Canada.
• The Dominion Lands Act was an 1872 Canadian law that encouraged the settlement of the Canadian prairies to prevent the lands from being claimed by the United States. It was similar to the American homestead system since it offered ownership of 160 acres of land for free to any man over 18 years of age, or any woman who headed a family. They were required to live on the land and improve it.
• "Last Best West" was the phrase used to market the Canadian prairies to immigrants until the start of World War I in 1914. This was meant to encourage families and make the North-West Territories of Canada more hospitable for women to settle there.

Beginning Research

• Guided Research
• Research Strategies
• Record Finder

Background

• Biographies
• Gazetteers
• History
• Maps
• Populated Places
• Further Reading

Resource Links

These are FamilySearch Wiki links with information to aid in your research.

• Business and Commerce
• Cemeteries
• Census
• Church Records
• Civil Registration
• Court Records
• Directories
• Emigration and Immigration
• Funeral Homes
• Genealogies
• Land and Property
• Military Records
• Municipal Records
• Naturalization and Citizenship
• Newspapers
  • Lethbridge Herald
• Obituaries
• Online Records
• Periodicals
• Probate Records
• School Records
• Vital Records

Cultural Groups

• Cultural Groups
• First Nations

Local Research Resources

• Archives and Libraries
• Societies
  • Southern Alberta Pioneers and their Descendants
• Family History Centers