Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta

Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta
Mezzanine Level (MCC Thrift Store)
2946 - 32 Street NE, Calgary, AB T1Y 6J7

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Mission: The MHSA aims to foster the uncovering of, interest in, preservation of, and dissemination of the history of Mennonites in Alberta through Regular Meetings, Communication, Archives, Projects, and Affordable Membership.

Our holdings have increased substantially, in that we now have 1,000 books, 1,000 periodical issues available for public research (items do not circulate). There are extensive resources for family historians.

Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization

Background: Between 1923 and 1930 almost 6,000 Mennonite households (20,201 individuals) pulled up their roots from the USSR and managed to emigrate to Canada - the majority to the Prairies and Ontario.

The Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization (CMBOC) of Rosthern, Saskatchewan created a registration form for each family that came to Canada under its auspices. These forms were cross-referenced to the ledger books which recorded the transportation debt which the Board owed Canadian Pacific Railway. They are on deposit with the Mennonite Heritage Centre in Winnipeg where they are carefully kept in archival conditions. The pages are of fragile newsprint and with many years of handling their condition has deteriorated. The MHC had them microfilmed as a conservation procedure for the long term protection of the originals.

These microfilms are now in a publicly accessible area of their archive. An index to these documents is now available on the CMBOC website, and a significant project is underway to transcribe all the details from these records and put them freely online as well. So far, information about 1,000 is online and it is expected that the whole collection will be online by the end of 2001.

The project is one being conducted by the Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta and the Mennonite Special Interest Group of the Alberta Family Histories Society.

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