Saskatchewan Ancestors: "Saskatchewan History" Magazine

 Once you delve into Canadian sources, you'll find that some provinces are absolute gold mines for online records. Saskatchewan is not one of those provinces. It's a combination of the Province's privacy laws and the youth of the Province compared to some others. Only becoming a province in 1905 means there isn't the long history that you see in Provinces like Ontario or British Columbia. Because those essential BMD records aren't as readily available as in a province like Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, those with Saskatchewan ancestry have to be a little more "out of the box" on resources.

This week I found a great resource on Internet Archive that will appeal to both genealogists and history lovers in general. Saskatchewan History is a magazine that was published by the Saskatchewan Archives Board. Internet Archive has issues from 1948 to 1957. It was published 3 times a year. History lovers and those wanting to know what their ancestor's life was like will find it a great read. 

Each issue has articles on different aspects of early pioneer life. The articles are well sourced, complete with citations.In the very first issue (Winter 1948) there is a small article highlighting a problem early settlers had that was unique to the Prairies: readily available water.

 There were also book reviews on the latest history books written about the province. This can give you new avenues of research to track down. Here's a review on Fifty Golden Years. A Brief History of the Order of St. Benedict in the Abbey Nullius of St. Peter, Muenster, Sask (Winter 1955 issue)

And here's a useful article on how Saskatchewan Places got their names (Winter 1950 issue). This section appeared regularly in the magazine

So what about the genealogy side of things? Well, there's plenty of articles focusing on specific people. One section to look at is the Notes and Correspondence section. Very much like today's "Letters to the Editor" section in newspapers and magazines. Here's a example from Winter 1949. Just look at the great extra information in these two letters:

Some issues had profiles on individuals. There's an in depth article on Philip Turner in the Spring 1950 issue. Philip was an inland surveyor.

If you're a descendant of Arthur Rowe Miller, how excited would you be to find his diary transcribed? Here's the first three pages. The article in the Spring 1957 issue is much longer.

In 1952 the Archives Board put out a Pioneer Questionnaire. In the Winter 1953 issue they featured snippets from some of the responses. Here's the page showing some memories of Mr. H. F. Copeland, who came from England in 1910.

Click here to access all the issues on Internet Archive.

As I was about to upload this post, I realized that the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan has digitized the entire run of the magazine from 1948 to 2017. Each entire issue can be downloaded as PDFs. They also have a PDF list of all the featured articles. You can get the links for each on the Archives' website.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both sites. The Provincial Archives has the complete run. However, you will have to download the entire issue. With Internet Archive you can have the ability to download specific pages. You do this by right clicking on the page and saving as a jpeg. Either way, if you have Saskatchewan ancestors, you'll want to take a look at this resource.