Looking for a gravemarker

Recently I wanted to know if I could find information from a cemetery in another part of the country. I typed the name of the area into google. I was looking for cemeteries in the Ottawa area. I typed in Renfrew cemetery. A website that came up was called freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. These web pages list the townships and each contain photographs of gravemarkers taken by people. What a wonderful project and so helpful to us who can't go and take the photograph themselves.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~murrayp/renfrew/index.htm

Canadian newspapers

If you go to: http://canadaclassifieds.oodle.com/ and click on "newspaper" at the top of page you can select papers from across Canada. Look for daily obituaries or search from previous papers.
Here is a list of newspapers I found there:
National Post; Victoria Times; Vancouver Sun; Edmonton Journal; Calgary Herald; Regina LeaderPost; Saskatoon StarPhoenix; Windsor Star; Ottawa Citizen; The Gazette(Montreal); DOSE; Canwest Community Publishing; Nanaimo Daily News.

Family Tree Chart

If you want to record your information on a family tree chart. You can type family tree chart into google and choose the following site or just go to this website:

http://genealogy.about.com/od/free_charts/ig/genealogy_charts/family_tree.htm

This chart allows you fill in the blanks on your computer and then print it out on an 81/2 X 11 paper.  This is what it looks like: 

Local Histories

The Golden Years published by Barrhead History Book Committee in 1978
Country Crossroads: A History of Gardenview-Lawton, Stewartfield & Mosside, published by Country Crossroads Senior Society in 1989
Links With the Past  published by Northwest Historical Society in 1989. Includes communities: Bloomsbury, Camp Creek, Churchill, Glenreagh, Moose Wallow, Mystery Lake, Roseholm, Roselea, Tiger Lily, and Carlton Hill, Northern Pride, Western Pride and Old Barrhead
A Furrow laid bare: Neerlandia District History, 1985
Tales & Trails: Dunstable & Area History published by Dunstable Communities Historial Society in 2007  Includes communities: Belvedere, Brookland, Five Lakes, Highridge, Fawn Lake, Clifton, Lac La Nonne, Dunstable, Sion and Majeau.
Reflections, A History of the Belvedere and Pembina School Districts published by Belvedere-Pembina History Book Committee in 1993
Mellowdale Memories published by Mellowdale Book Committee in 1981
Echoes of Fort Assiniboine and Districts published by the Friendship Club Book Committee in 1982
Memories of Pibroch, Sunniebend, Linaria, Shoal Creek 1900-1984
80 Years of Progress published by Westlock History Book Committee in 1984
Three Trails Home, A History of Mayerthorpe And Districts Alberta Canada 1980
Spirit and Trails of Lac Ste Anne, 1982
Eastburg, published by Eastburg Women of Unifarm in 2000
Seventy Years Gone By - History of Heaton Moor and Brookland, 1979 paperback
Manola, 1979 paperback
 
Some of these books are available online at: http://www.ourroots.ca or http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca

Mellowdale

The first church in Mellowdale was a Methodist log church built in 1909 and located on the W.T. Harris homestead SW27-60-R3-W5.  A small piece of land was donated by Mr. Harris for the church and cemetery. The church no longer stands but the cemetery is still in use today.

In 1975 they received a grant to restore the cemetery and many hours of hard work was put into this project. A cairn with 83 names of people in the records from 1917 to 1971 was erected. The inscription on the cairn reads: "This memorial was erected to commemorate the memory of our pioneers." A new gate sign with the name "Mellowdale Community Cemetery" was also erected.

The early burials, according to the burial records, were mostly located near the centre of the north boundary. Many of these are not marked and so that area is being left and new burials are being placed elsewhere. A couple burials along the NE fence were moved from the Naples cemetery

Christ Lutheran Church Mellowdale was built in 1912. It still stands today, "the Church on the Hill" It is located right beside the highway to Neerlandia and has a large cemetery behind the church.

This information was taken from the local history book "Mellowdale Memories" written in 1981.

 Mellowdale Community Cemetery

 Christ Lutheran Church Mellowdale

Christ Lutheran cemetery Mellowdale

Trails Northwest

A history of the district of Barrhead, Alberta, compiled and written by various members of the Barrhead and District Historical Society as one of the Society's Centennial projects. 1867-1967
The Dedication reads: This book is dedicated in affectionate memory to all our pioneer settlers who travelled the first Trails Northwest. This book can be viewed online at the following website:

http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/loc_hist/toc.aspx?id=4188

Genealogy Records

Canadian Genealogy Records online. You can select the province you are interested in.

http://www.genealogysearch.org/canada/

Edmonton burial database

The city of Edmonton provides an online database to locate a burial location of a deceased person. You can search these cemeteries. http://www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/service-cemetery-search.aspx

Beechmount	12420 104 St
Clover Bar	2025 Yellowhead Trail
Edmonton	11820 107 Ave
Little Mountain	16025 50 St
Mount Pleasant	5420 106 St
Northern Lights	15203 Campbell Road
South Haven	5004 Meridian St

Family History Society

The Alberta Family History Society has a website where you can do a cemetery search. There are 165,000 cemetery records to search. You can either order the full cemetery transcript or ask for specific details.

http://www.afhs.ab.ca/data/cemeteries/search.php

Edmonton Public Library

Edmonton Public Library has a website where you can search their index to locate the date on which an obituary was published in the Edmonton Journal. Index covers from January 1959 to December 1982.

http://www.epl.ca/EPLObituaries.cfm

Edmonton Journal Death Archive

If you want to search for obituaries in the Edmonton Journal you can go to the website:

http://classifieds.canada.com/edmonton/archives/index.aspx?cls_id=33935&goback=30

The earliest archived date is Sunday, May 12, 2002.

Topland Cemetery

The Topland community was settled during the years 1926-1932. The school district was formed about this time.  In 1936 it was decided that a cemetery was needed in this district. Shares were sold for twenty-five cents a share and along with revenue from dances, etc. enough money was raised to buy two acres of land on the S.W. corner of section 11-62-7-W5. This became the Topland Cemetery where many of the old-timers of the district have been laid to rest. In 1975 a monument was erected in honor of the pioneers buried there--money for this was made possible by a special grant issued for the restoration of older cemeteries. (info taken from the history book "Echoe's of Fort Assiniboine And Districts" p.183-184)

Here is a list of surnames of people buried in Topland Cemetery as of 1994.

Bridgeman, Bookhout, Bready, Betts, Carlson, Carty, Casavant, Courtepatte, Carter, Dean, Davison, Fidler, Fleming, Forman, Green, Hedenstad, Jackman, Lehr, McQueen, Meek, Meredith, Macleod, Olson, Stepaniuk, Smith, Teas, Thomas, Turner, Vobeyda, Wharton, Whitehead, Wiese.

Vital Statistics

If you want to search for vital statistics, some Canadian provinces are available online.

British Columbia:  http://search.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca

You can choose All indexes and then List of Genealogy Indexes.
Options of birth/marriage/death/baptisms or All indexes

Saskatchewan:  http://www.isc.ca/VitalStatistics

Choose Genealogy and Genealogy Index Searches
You can search births more than 100 years ago
Deaths prior to 1917
Marriages are not available yet

Manitoba: http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca

Choose Search the databases
Births (more than 100 years ago)
Marriages (more than 80 years ago)
Deaths (more than 70 years ago)

Census Records

If you are looking for family members in Canada, you can search the census records online. Go to the following website: http://www.automatedgenealogy.com/

Choose the year 1901 or 1911
Choose the province / district / surname

Klondyke Cemetery

It's been a while since I wrote something on this blog.  I wondered what could I write about.  Then the thought came to mind that I could write about the different cemeteries in Barrhead County.

A cemetery we had copied back in 1994 was the Klondyke or Doris-Timeu Cemetery.  It is located at NW 7 63 4 W5 northeast of Fort Assiniboine, Alberta. At that time there were about six or seven rows. Some of the family names buried there are as follows: Ashby, Anderson, Chaney, Cooper, Ehl, Graham, Hughes, McKeigue, Marcel, Mitchell, Mowery, Nelson, Nickols(Nichols), Schulte, Sheren, Thom, Thiede and Utas.

The local history book "Echoe's of Fort Assiniboine & Districts" written in 1982 has a story written about Klondike City - Now Doris. You can find this book online: http://www.ourroots.ca
Go to "browse" and choose the letters in the title.   (http://www.ourroots.ca/e/toc.aspx?id=7546)

On page 69 you will find the story by Fern Rader about Klondike City.  The earliest settlers in the district were Ollie Finstead and Anton Holmes.  In 1924 Mrs. Elmer Nichols died in childbirth at a nursing home in Westlock. The mother and baby were buried in a corner of the yard, and were the first graves in the present cemetery.  Read the rest of the story on pages 70-72.