Western Land Grants

[lesleychivers]

My great uncle emigrated to Saskatchewan, Canada sometime after 1916 ( I think.) He went to join his sister and husband who were there until 1926 'ish.
His name was William Henry Gammon born 1890 in Devon.
I have found a reference to him in Western Land Grants and was wondering how I can go about getting a copy of this document to confirm if it is him.
Here's the reference.
Part  Section  township  range Meridian
SE       21            8               18       W1

Vol 1
Folio 315
C5942.

Also any idea where this is and how I can pin point it on a map. I've tried reading the instructions on various sites and it seems very confusing to me.

Also I found a reference in Homestead Index that was different.

Any help appreciated to get me on the right track.

Thanks
Lesley

[jorose]

It can be a bit tricky to work out where exactly a piece of land was. For SK I use:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~skwheat/

Start from the right hand side - west of the 1st meridian, the block of land is township 8, range 18. Townships go up/down (higher number is further north), ranges go higher as you go west from the meridian.  Each block was split into sections - his is in section 21 - and each section could be split into four quarters - his is the SE quarter.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canmaps/mines1914/MinesRectangle.html - the 1st or Principal meridian runs just west of Winnipeg.  Go to the bottom of it - the bottom row is marked with numbers. Go west until you see '18', which is near Morton. That square is Range 18 Township 1.  Count upwards until you get to 8. (It's near a place called Nesbitt, the next township north).  This appears to be in Manitoba, not Saskatchewan.

Within that square, here's a homestead map (not from the same area, but you get the idea. This might be a US one). Note the numbers that appear in order from the top left, often in the middle of four smaller squares. That's the section:
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ecross/Cross/Antelope%20Township.jpg

[adee7]

Jorose,

Thanks for the explanation.  I too have some grants for

land out west that I'd like to locate.

Regards,

Kathleen

[lesleychivers]

Thank you Jorose for the detailed response.
I think I know where the land is now but I'm still searching for a homestead map of the area.

Thanks again
Lesley

[jeffster]

You are probably looking close to Brandon...as well a lot of my relatives moved all over the place for homesteads so they could have ended up in Saskatchewan at one time (the grants were available until 1930).

The homestead records for Manitoba are in Winnepeg I would surmise or in the Hudson Bay Company archives, a lot of the Saskatchewan ones are either in Saskatoon/Regina (on original paper) I can go to the university and take a peak if it's in Saskatchewan (depending on my work schedule). The homestead records in Alberta are in Edmonton.

http://www.saskhomesteads.com/  <--exclusively Saskatchewan homestead or land grants

http://abgensoc.ca/homestead/  <-- Alberta's list....

Cheers Jeff

[J.J.]

Haha, Jeff, beat me to it.. as I saw it would be closer to Brandon...

~~~~~~~~~
curious, Lesley, as to...What makes you think there would be proof in determining whether or not this is the right person, as there are official documents signed by all parties, but no other family listed unless they were part of the same grant...which would be listed online if they were...

[lesleychivers]

Well as you can see I don't really know what I'm trying to find here.
The first Western Land Grant  reference above seems to be a really good match. First, middle and surname. But are you saying that he might not have settled here, may have gone on to another homestead ? I am trying to see if he has any living relatives, my elderly father is anxious to be in touch with them. So I thought finding out where he settled would be a good place to start and then search birth, marriage death records etc.
The second reference I have from the  Saskatchewan Homestead Index is SW 21 20 6 W3. He is just listed as William Gammon here, so maybe less chance of it being the correct person.
Should I send for copies of both and see if it throws any light on it ?
I really am grateful for any help, this is so much more complicated than I ever imagined.

Lesley

[Prodger]

The reference

Vol 1
Folio 315
C5942.

Is to a microfilm roll at the national Archives in Ottawa.

Try this url for contact info.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/contact/index-e.html

[Prodger]

There are several land grants for William Henry Gammon in the archives. This one had an image on line.

 http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/western-land-grants/001007-119.02-e.php?sisn_id_nbr=509466&page_sequence_nbr=1&PHPSESSID=pt28egolr9542ohm9lemdtedf6

This is the search result screen

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/western-land-grants/001007-110.01-e.php?PHPSESSID=pt28egolr9542ohm9lemdtedf6&q1=&q2=&q3=&q4=&q5=gammon&q6=&interval=20