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Volume 15, No. 1
Biggar Root Booster
Newsletter Biggar Branch Saskatchewan Genealogical Society
Volume 15, No1. Winter 2009
2008 - The Year in Review
No workshops were held at our monthly meetings, but we had several good discussion sessions and aided our members with their personal research. Last fall we advertised a ‘Beginners Workshop’ but there was no interest.
We published a Winter, Spring and a combined Summer/Fall issues of our newsletter, The Biggar Root Booster, with a total of 12 pages. Topics this year included: Annual Report - The Year in Review, The Wreck of the Steamer John B. Lyon September 1900, SGS Seminar ‘08 - A Report, Biggar Branch SGS Members Attend Re-opening of SGS Library & Research Room and Office, New Research Guides, Biggar Encyclopaedia, Biggar Museum & Gallery Selects Community Centennial Project, A Nation’s Chronicle: The Canada Gazette - Canada’s official newspaper now online, Launch Announcement for the Second World War Service Files, Popular Websites.
Electronic copies of our newsletter in PDF format were sent to 15 of the 19 other SGS Branches. We received electronic copies of the Regina, Saskatoon and Weyburn Branch newsletters. A hard copy of each was placed in our library and electronic copies were forward to our branch members. We also exchange our newsletter with the Quesnel Branch British Columbia Genealogical Society.
We continued to work on the Biggar Heritage Album during 2008. Several pages were added to the album.
No new publications were published during the year. We continue to offer 8 publications for sale. They are available from the Branch by mail or can be purchased in the gift shop at the Biggar Museum and Gallery. Rae continues his project of extracting the births, deaths and marriages from The Independent for the period 1951 to 1960. This period probably has the most vital record events reported in the newspaper of any time period.
We updated our obituary index to include 2008 but did not go to full scale publication. A copy of the index for 2006 to 2008 was donated as a manuscript to the Biggar Museum & Gallery and the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society. This index series now covers from 1984 to 2008, twenty- four years.
Marj Hawes extracted data for the SRI of the obituaries from The Independent from 2002 to 2007. These are now part of the online SGS databases. The Branch plans to continue with indexing the obits from The Independent for the SRI.
A Biggar Branch business card was created and left at the museum. They have visitors and are able to refer them to the Branch.
We took advantage of one of the SGS book sales and purchased several books and magazines for the Branch.
We promoted the Branch by taking out a one page ad in the Town & Country Days passport.
The Branch made a donation to the SGS in memory of Marj Hawes and another donation to the SGS Projector Fund. The projector has been purchased and was put to use at the 40th Anniversary Conference.
We received several written queries and also answered several queries on behalf of the Biggar Museum & Gallery. Most seem rather astonished at what we were able to find.
We have a website: http://www.biggargenealogy.wetpaint.com Our newsletter is now also published on the site without the ads.
SGS 1994 vs 2008
Since the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society is celebrating its 40th Anniversary in 2009, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Society has changed in the past 15 years. Data is based on the 1994 and 2008 annual reports.
I’ve included data on the SGS membership and its programs. What is particularly interesting is to see how the SRI, cemetery and obituary programs have grown over time. Also make note of how the demands on the SGS Librarian have changed over time as well and how much the collection has grown.
Membership 1,138 --- 8491994 --- 2008
Members in SK communities 178 ---149
Cemeteries Cemeteries/burial grounds 2,492--- 3,422
Recorded cemeteries 1,340 --- 2,420
Education
Workshops SGS Library 24 none
People 252 none
Workshops outside library
Workshops 60 50
People 1,600 1,192
Obituaries unknown 750,000
SRI
Sources registered 242 606
Records in database 659,000 2,853,485
Library Visitors 5,055 2,760
Circulation 63,667 49,969
Responses to email none 3,700
Packages of books mailed 1,175 363
Phone calls for info 1,140 3,600
Research requests filled 161 281
Books 15,841 21,031
Microforms 22,808 35,728
Maps 197 587
Videos 8 10
CD Rom’s None 42
1916 Canada Census
Manitoba, Saskatchewan & Alberta The 1916 census is now indexed and available to patrons at your local family history centre via AncestryInstitution.com login. You may also access the census with a subscription to Ancestry.ca
FamilySearch Indexing Projects
FamilySearch has many indexing projects underway. You can find out what is being indexed by visiting http://www.familysearchindexing.org/projects/current_projects.jsf Completed indexes are free to the public and can be searched at FamilySearch.org (go to Search Records and then Record Search pilot). Click onto a country shown on the map and a list of completed projects will appear. The United Kingdom shows up under Europe. Russia appears under Asia. Click onto the "blue text" for a description of the records and whether they have been indexed or only have images loaded. Under Europe there are indexes or record images for the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Norway, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, France, Ireland and Netherlands. The site is worth visit.
British Newspapers 1800-1900
Lookings for British newspapers online? Go to: http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/dispBasicSearch.do?prodId=BLCS&userGroupName=blcsuser. This site has newspapers from 1800 up to 1900. It is a fee based website and you can check to see what newspapers it has for the area you are interested in. You can buy a 24 hour pass for ^6.99 allowing you to view up to 100 articles or a seven day pass with 200 article views for ^9.99. Batoche
Everyone with family roots going back to Batoche will want to read the latest book written by Ms. Diane Payment. Her latest book is titled The Free People Li Gens Libre A History of the Métis Community of Batoche, Saskatchewan. Bill Robertson of the Star Phoenix did a review of the book in the Weekend Extra section on May 9, 2009. The book is published by the University of Calgary Press, $29.95.
Google
Everyone at one time or another has used Google to do a web search. Depending upon what the search terms that are used for the search a search may yield hundreds of thousands or a million hits. In the Google search box next time you use Google type in Google Help and you will be lead to the Goggle Help Centers "to learn the ins-and-outs of Google products and solve any problems you encounter." Take the time to browse the site
Google is a wonderful web tool, but users must take the time and use the helps to learn how to use Google to its full potential.
Biggar Encyclopaedia
Check out the new content in the Biggar Encyclopaedia at: http://www.biggarencyclopaedia.wetpaint.com
Anyone interested and knowledgeable about the history of Biggar are invited to join the site and contribute content. To contribute content you need to register and submit a writers request. Once you have done that it is easy to work with the wiki website.
Photographs of the past and present are needed of every business and organization that has ever existed in Biggar to tell the story of Biggar. We also have some photos where not all the people in them are identified. Perhaps you can help in this area.
Glenwbow Museum
The Glenbow Museum in Calgary has a online presence with a wonderful collection of old photographs that have been scanned and placed online. In addition to the photographs one can do searches in other collections including the CPR Land Sales. Visit: http://www.glenbow.org/collections/
Peel’s Prairie Provinces
More of Peel’s collection of the prairie provinces is being digitized and placed online. The website for the collection is: http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/index.html The Peel collection now has over 10,369 newspaper issues online with 135,502 pages that are full-text searchable. Searches can be made through all or selected newspapers by using the advanced search interface, click on the "Find Newspapers" button at the top.
Henderson's Directories for the prairie provinces are also digitized and online. They include directories for Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Redcliff, Alberta, Winnipeg and incorporated towns of Manitoba, Brandon, Manitoba and Northwest Territories.
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