...helping you research your family history around the world...

Introduction

Family histories are the threads woven to create the fabric of a community’s history.

To develop a family history, a family historian must research the records that were created about the ancestor during their life time: church & school registers, vital statistics, land & tax records, census returns, grave stones, etc. If, for any reason, some of these records are not available, the task becomes much more difficult. As a result, the fabric of the community’s history will be weakened.

The SGS is anxious that the history of Saskatchewan’s people be preserved. The Society and its members have developed a number of indexing programs to assist researchers: cemeteries transcriptions, SRI, census. The newest project is a Directory that lists location and accessibility of records pertinent to Saskatchewan residents - the Saskatchewan Heritage Resources Directory commonly known as SHRD (pronounced "shard").

The beginning of the 20^th century saw an influx of settlers to our province. Many new farms, schools, churches, and villages were created. The last half of the century has seen a reversal of this process and those same schools, churches and villages are disappearing. Demographics indicate that Saskatchewan’s rural population will continue to shift and more small communities will cease to exist.

The people who lived in the villages, on the farms, who attended church and school, created records or had records created about them. Such records need to be located, identified and preserved.

The SGS and other heritage groups are concerned that much of the history of those early residents will be lost if something is not done to ensure the preservation of rural records.

The process of locating, identifying and cataloguing heritage records will take place in an orderly manner as directed by the SHRD Project Committee. Specialized forms will be used by registered SHRD volunteers to gather the necessary information on each heritage record or collection of records. These will be reviewed and added to a computer database that will be available at the SGS Library in Regina, and on the SGS Internet web site. Great care will be taken to ensure the accuracy of the information in the SHRD database.

The links on the left will take you to several SHRD web pages. These explain the SHRD procedures, allow you to registered as a SHRD volunteer, let you see who is currently researching which areas, let you access the SHRD database in several different ways, and even let you submit additions and corrections to the SHRD information.