Gordon Lane, president of the Alberta Family Histories Society, says the idea for the registry came from Janet Morgan. "We wanted to do something specifically Canadian at a time when Cyndi's List was starting out and did not have a lot of Canadian content." The AFHS also wanted to avoid duplication of efforts, particularly when it came to transcribing source material and maintaining an open trail to genealogical projects that had begun but were not yet completed.
And like Cyndi's List, the Registry grew. The AFHS kept it strictly Canadian and enhanced it with records that some genealogists might overlook: newspaper announcements, directories, military records, lineages, wills/probate records and even divorce papers.
Some of the information is original source material that has been patiently transcribed by volunteers. There are links to Canadian sources online and offline, such as cemetery records, divorce papers and other genealogical resources. There are more than 98,000 tombstones which have been put online.
"All the information is free," says Lane, "although some of the linked web sites may charge for data access to their respective web site."
Visit the Canadian Genealogical Projects Registry at www.afhs.ab.ca/registry.