A Circular Search for Fred Miller
In October I was assigned two families to help with family history. One was interested in finding out more about a great grandfather, Fred Miller who farmed at Hanna, Alberta and may have been a minister there. In FamilySearch we found nothing on Fred or his wife Salme. I drew a blank at ancestry.com too.
My friend's father, was unable to give much information. "They were from Romania and spoke German, so I couldn't really talk to them. They lived at Hanna, and I never really got to know them."
I knew that German-speaking people had settled along the eastern border of Romania, in a district called Bessarabia. And that the family name in German may well have been Mueller, or something similar.
At home I did some more research. A google search found old newspapers from Hanna, Alberta, telling of a deadly house fire in 1946 that killed three members of the Fred Miller family and hospitalized others. (I am not sure this is the same Fred Miller family.) There were also newspaper clippings of an engagement and two weddings.
Then I looked for local histories in http://ourroots.ca and found "Hanna North", a wonderful book, that included a family history written by one of the daughters, that included a family group photo! In fact the daughter writing the Miller family story was one of the two whose wedding was reported in the local paper. This can be found on pages 366-367 of the book, or this direct link to the FRED MILLER STORY
With the additional information, I decided to look for Fred Miller in MyHeritage.com, a site that specializes in central and eastern European genealogy. I found a perfect match in MyHeritage to a record imported from FamilySearch! And in FamilySearch there was information on Fred and Salome's parents and siblings. It was wonderful! I felt that these people really wanted to be found.
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posted by Bill Buchanan | 11:25 AM
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