Alberta Archives and Libraries

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Beginning Research
Record Types
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Local Research Resources


The International Institute of Genealogical Studies has contributed extensive content from its Alberta Course on Alberta Archives and Libraries as follows:

Archives and Libraries

  • Library and Archives Canada

395 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0N3
CANADA
Telephone: 613-996-7458
Website
Genealogy and Family History


  • Provincial Archives of Alberta

12845-102 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5N 0M6
CANADA
Telephone: 403-427-1750
Fax: 403-427-4646
Website


Hudson’s Bay Company

Records of this fur trading company are some of Canada’s most important. Until 1870, the company controlled almost four-fifths of the territory of present-day Canada, including northern Quebec and Ontario and most of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA), home to the archival records of Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), is part of the Archives of Manitoba operating under The Archives and Recordkeeping Act and 1994 gift agreement between HBC and the Government of Manitoba. HBCA operations are supported in part through the ongoing financial support of the Hudson's Bay Company History Foundation.[1]
A very helpful source is:


  • City of Edmonton Archives

10440-102 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5H 3Z9
CANADA
Telephone: 403-496-8710
Fax: 403-496-8732
Website


  • United Church Archives

St. Stephen's College
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E8
CANADA
Telephone: 403-439-7311
Fax: 403-433-8875
Website

Museums

  • Glenbow-Alberta Institute

130 9th Avenue S.E.
Calgary, AB T2G 0P3
Telephone: 403-263-9552
Website

  • The Glenbow Museum has scanned images of diaries, letters, minute books, scrapbooks, and other unpublished archival records for over 3,000 individuals, families, clubs, businesses, schools, and organizations in Calgary, southern Alberta and Western Canada. For example, there are Will Parker's letters to his father in England, in which he tells of getting typhoid fever and joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

  • Galt Museum in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

Website Areas available to Search are Audio Recordings; Films, Negatives, Photographs, Slides and Videos; Government and Government Agency Records; and Maps and Technical Drawings.

Record Offices

Civil Registration at the Provincial Archives of Alberta

Birth, marriage, and death records are available beginning in 1870, although reliable coverage began more in 1898.

The Provincial Archives of Alberta provides access to:
  • birth records that are 120 years or older (from the date of birth)
  • marriage records that are 75 years or older (from the date of marriage)
  • death records that are 50 years or older (from the date of death)
  • stillbirth records that are 75 years or older (from the date of stillbirth)

Indexes

Before requesting a record, find your ancestor in the index and copy down the reference number:

Requesting and Purchasing a Record

Registry Offices

Records too recent to be obtained from the Archives have privacy restrictions. These can still be obtained if you are able to show that the individual is deceased and that you are an eligible next of kin (parent, sibling, children or spouse).

  1. "Hudson's Bay Company Archives". Manitoba Archives. https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/. Accessed 6 October 2020.