It Pays to Read Other People's Blogs

I use Feedly to read a number of other people's blogs. One I read almost every day is by Randy Seaver, at www.geneamusings.com. One of his weekly posts is about new and updated collections on Ancestry.com. Recently it included that they had added some Alberta Canada vital records indexes. Since some of my family had immigrated there I decided to check them out.

The Marriage Records Index was from 1898 to 1942. My grandaunt, Lenah (Albertson) Slaight and her family moved to Alberta in 1902 and returned to the United States about 1920. While they were living in Alberta their daughter, Blossom, was married. I had estimated a date of about 1915 for her marriage, so I checked this database and there she was, Blossom Slaight married Martin H. Brown in 1918 at Harmattan, Alberta, Canada. It is not an exact date, but is more information than I had before.

My 2^nd gt-grandaunt, Sophronia (O'Neal) Elliott, with her family moved to Alberta between 1905 and 1911. I discovered her husband Robert's death date in 1911 through a probate record here in Oregon. But I didn't know when Sophronia died. I checked the Ancestry data base for Alberta Deaths 1870 to 1966 and found just one Sophronia Elliott and she died in 1919 in Geoford, Alberta, Canada. However when I checked Google Maps for the location of Geoford nothing was found. I suspect that the name was misread since in an Alberta gazateer and directory for 1914 she was living at Yeoford.

I really appreciate Randy for alerting me to these newly added databases.