Genealogy blogger Michael John Neill has a solution for genealogists who want to search the Alberta homestead records, but who don’t subscribe to Ancestry.ca or Ancestry World Deluxe. Judging by the number of reviews my blog post, Ancestry launches Alberta homestead collection, received, there is certainly a lot of interest in this collection.
In his blog, Genealogy Search Tip, Mr. Neill explains how to search the records for free by looking up the microfilm numbers on the Alberta Genealogical Society’s website and then finding the microfilm reel on Internet Archive.
Mr. Neill refers to the work done by the Alberta Genealogical Society when it created an all-name index to the homestead files on the 686 microfilm reels, held at the Provincial Archives of Alberta, to mark Alberta’s centenary in 2005.
To access the free records, follow the steps in Mr. Neill’s blog post, Alberta Homestead Records. Note that 496 of the 686 microfilm reels are available on Internet Archives, which is a good start.
Thanks for mentioning my post. These are a great series of records. Hopefully more will be added to Archive.org for those who don’t have an Ancestry.com subscription.
Hi Viewers,
With Ancestry’s recent announcement in launching the AB Homestead Collection, the Alberta Genealogical Society would like viewers to seriously compare the scope of the two indexes. Ancestry’s index is has a minimal listing of approximately 207,000 records, whereas the Alberta Genealogical Society has in their combined database over 520,000 entries.
The AGS all name homestead index for 1870 to post-1930, lists those applying for land patents between 1885 and 1897; those who completed the homesteading process and eventually obtained a title; those who applied but abandoned their homesteads; and other individuals whose name appears in the files for a variety of reasons—something the Library and Archives of Canada nor Ancestry has done.
We invite everyone to view the AGS databases which have twice as many records, and twice the knowledge over the record index at http://www.abgenealogy.ca/alberta-homestead-indexes.
Thank you, Lyn Meehan, AGS Communications.
Good information, Lynn. Thanks for sharing!