I can't stress enough how important it is to have Canadiana bookmarked on your internet browser. This fantastic free resource has a massive amount of digitized material relating to Canada. While looking for inspiration for my blog post this week, I used the following search term in the main search box:
"Alberta" AND "directory"
When you think "directory", the first thought is City/County directories. These are a great resource, but I wanted to find more "out of the box" results. As usual, Canadiana did not disappoint with unusual material.
Directory of poultry breeders of Alberta, 1918
If your ancestor was in the poultry industry, then this one's for you. Like a regular directory, it has listings with addresses of anyone involved in the industry. It also has advertisements like these ones:
Here's the recent winners of trophies from the Alberta Provincial Poultry Association
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, her industries and resources
This is great resource if your ancestor owned a business in Calgary. Along with the usual advertisements, there are also short sketches of the businesses and owners. Here's one about the local laundry owner, John Dean
Some are longer entries, giving some great details. Look at this lengthy one for George Murdoch
Opportunities in Alberta, 1916
This is one of a series of publications. Their purpose was to entice people to come and settle in the province. They gave overviews of the province as a whole in terms of land and employment opportunities. They also gave details about districts and towns. If you were wanting information on what your ancestor's community was like, these are a good resource. Here's the snippet on what the community of McLeod, Alberta
Henderson's northwest brand book (1889)
If your ancestor was a rancher, you might want to look at this. Each ranch listed describes their brand and where on the animal it is located. Some even have a visual to help
Even better, at the back of the book is a reverse index, showing the brands. You could then go to the page reference and find the ranch it belongs to.
Digest Western law reporter, vols. 1 to 24, Territories law reports vols. 1 to 7 : and the official reports for the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, concurrent with the W.L.R., together with a collection of other cases of special interest to Western Canada / compiled by Thomas T. Rolph and Walter E. Lear
This is an interesting one! If your ancestor was involved in a legal case before 1915, you'll want to look at this. The front of the book lists court cases alphabetically. Look for your case name, and then use the column numbers listed to find the case details
These are just a few examples. While you're at it, also check these links that popped up in the results
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