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Location: America > Canada
Canada
Volga Germans started arriving in Canada in the 1890s.
Volga Germans settled in 3 provinces in Canada:
Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Starting about 1900 the lure to Canada was the abundance of free homesteads in western
Canada, at a time when land was not longer easy to acquire in the United States.
The primary occupation of the Volga Germans in
Canada was wheat farming. A large employer of Volga Germans in Canada was the
railroads, specifically the CPR railroad. Many of the Volga Germans living in Calgary
were employed by CPR railroad.
In Alberta the Volga Germans tended to cluster around the Calgary area, and in Manitoba they
clustered around Winnipeg. In Saskatchewan the Volga Germans were more spread throughout
the wheat producing areas which can be seen in this
map of Canada and the USA.
Volga Germans from the villages of
Ahrenfeld, Balzer, Bangert, Dreispitz, Galka, Grimm, Holstein, Huck,
Hussenbach, Kamyshin, Kratzke, Norka, Pobochnoye, Rosenberg, Schuck, Shcherbakovka,
Unterdorf, Vollmer, Warenburg, Yagodnaya Polyana settled in Canada as seen on this
Canadian settlement list.
Genealogical research in Canada
Genealogical research in Canada can be difficult because of some restrictive government policies
but at times it can also be very productive because of the strong genealogical community
in Canada, and in particular
the German Russian volunteers. There are a wealth of valuable genealogical websites full of
indexes covering the areas where Volga Germans settled.
A relatively new resource is the
1906 Canadian
Census of the Northwest Provinces which has been put online by Library and Archives Canada.
This information here is not indexed by individual name, but the actual census records
by location can be selected
and viewed free of charge. What makes this resource even more useful is the indexing of these
records by volunteers. The Alberta Family Histories
Society is in the process of indexing the entire census.
From that site they link every district in the 3 provinces and you can view census records
and any associated indexes are available. There are more indexes available for Alberta
than the other 2 provinces, and in fact, it appears that the indexing of Alberta is nearly complete.
The search function to this index is very sophisticated, but of course names can be terribly
misspelled so you may need to browse the records also. This is a very powerful and exciting new
research tool and many Volga German volunteers have contributed to this project.
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The Alberta family History Society is a very active group
politically as well as genealogically.
They compiled many large indexes although they are a little hard to find
on their website. On their home page look in the lower right corner for the
DATA section. Besides their census index, the other huge project they have done is indexing
the cemeteries in Alberta.
There are probably a thousand or more Volga Germans indexed in these cemetery listing. One cemetery
index, the Burnsland cemetery in Calgary, AB contains listings for many Volga Germans.
Another exciting new resource for Canadian researchers is the naturalization records that have been
also recently put online. These records contain about 200,000 naturalized Canadians.
At the
Canadian Genealogy Centre online home page,
click on
databases, at the top of the page.
On that page you will find a link to the
1915-1932 Canadian Naturalization.
The search method is confusing, so read the search help. Click on the search link and enter a
surname into the box. You will then be provided a list of pages with alphabetical ranges in which
the name you requested could be contained. Search the appropriate page for each year for your
surname. More information is contained in the records in later years, for example the wife's name is
added to the records. A small sampling of some Volga German surnames in the naturalization
records can be found here.
The Canadians published local history books, often in small communities. Individuals
often contributed a few pages to these books about their family. These contain a wealth
of information. Our Future Our Past
has scanned and indexed copies of hundreds of local history books, consisting of 58,675 pages.
Use the bottom search box, the keyword searh to find search for surnames.
This index of local history books
contain 222,205 individuals from 324 local history books.
The AHSGR Calgary Chapter is a very
active group in the Calgary area. Their website now contains an index for thousands of
obituaries of
Germans from Russia, most of which were Volga Germans.
The other massive index of information for Canadian researches are the
canadian ship lists, indexed by George Dorscher on the
Odessa Digital Library. There is a
full text search button available on the website or you can browse the
specific ship lists of
Halifax, 1900-1914,
Quebec, 1900-1909,
Quebec, 1909-1914,
St. John, 1900-1909, and
St. John, 1910-1914.
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