[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] 1901 census and Prairie towns

[Dave Obee]

Census sub-districts on the Canadian prairies are sometimes named after
settlements, sometimes not. You can't count on that method. If you do, have
fun with Red Deer; they seemed to throw that one in whenever they ran out of
better ideas.

Bear in mind that in 1901 the area south of Winnipeg had been settled for
almost 30 years, so a lot of the placenames were getting locked in. The
farther west you go, the more names were still indefinite, to be kind. You
are lucky your people were in the established area.

The census index on Ancestry.com is good as far is it goes, which so far is
just bits of Manitoba. Another source is www.ingeneas.com, which has indexed
immigrants appearing in the 1901 census of Manitoba. Edward Jager, aged 34,
is there, in the Provencher district, but it does not point you to Franklin.
If you're clever, you can break the Ingeneas code, which will get you to the
right frame more quickly.

A census index for Alberta has been published by the Alberta Genealogical
Society, which has posted a major chunk of it on its web site. The AGS is
also working on Saskatchewan, with publication of some of those volumes due
soon. I don't know if those will be on the Web.

Dave Obee