A School Assignment

 

I had a phone call last night from a granddaughter, whose father is Cree-Metis. She asked about her native ancestry, and whether there were any chiefs in her ancestry. I had researched that family line, and I was unaware of any chief's but there were a few prominent people.

A famous ancestor: Michel Klyne, your 6th great-grandfather

Michel Klyne (2 July 1781 – 1868) was an employee of the North West Company and later the Hudson's Bay Company, serving as postmaster at Jasper House in the Rocky Mountains.

Early life
Klyne was born in the Province of Quebec in 1781, son of a Hessian soldier, Johan Adam Klein (or Jean Adam Klyne) who fought in the American Revolutionary War, and his French Canadian wife, Marie-Geneviève Bisson. He had one sister, also named Marie-Geneviève, and several half-siblings through his father.

The North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company
Klyne entered the employ of the North West Company in the late 1790s as a fur trader.[1] Following the 1821 merger of the NWC and the HBC, he was put in charge of Jasper House, near modern Jasper, Alberta. He served as postmaster for 11 years, from 1824 to 1834. In 1835, he retired to the Red River.[2] Alberta's Cline River and Mount Cline[3] were named in his honor (using a variant spelling of his surname), as well as "Old Klyne's Trail", a trail running along the Cline river valley from the Kootenay Plains to the Athabasca River.[4]

Personal life
In 1807, Klyne married Suzanne Lafrance, daughter of a prominent Métis family. They had ten children, including Jane Klyne McDonald, wife of Archibald McDonald of the Hudson's Bay Company, and George Klyne, MLA (1871–74)[5] for Ste. Agathe, Manitoba.

References
Ross, Jane; Kyba, Daniel (2009). The David Thompson Highway. Rocky Mountain Books. ISBN 1-897522-48-7.
McDonald, Archibald (2002). This Blessed Wilderness: Archibald McDonald's Letters from the Columbia, 1822-44. UBC Press. p. 276. ISBN 0774808330.
Travel Nordegg - Mount Cline Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine
Sanford, Emerson; Sanford Beck, Janice (2009). Life of the Trail 4: Historic Hikes in Eastern Jasper National Park. Rocky Mountain Books. ISBN 1-897522-42-8.
The Manitoba Historical Society - George Klyne (1828-?)  

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Klyne]

Note that "postmaster" in this context means the master of a trading post.

The article fails to mention that Michel Klyne moved his trading post, called Jasper House, to the present location of Jasper, Alberta. So if it wasn't for him, the town of Jasper would be somewhere else. One of his sons-in-law also ran fur trading posts and his son George was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.

Imagine our part of the world as it was in his day. The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba did not yet exist. That whole area was called Rupertsland and was the fur trading empire of the Hudson's Bay Company. There were no cities or towns and almost no farms. There were no highways or railways, transportation was by foot, horseback, cart, or boat. There was a scattering of fur trading posts run by the fur trading companies: Sometimes there were small settlements around these: St Paul, Lac la Biche, Calling Lake, Fort Edmonton, St Albert, Lac Ste Anne, Rocky Mountain House, and Jasper House. Michel Klyne ran Jasper House for several years, and was the most prominent person in that area at that time. 

I hope you find this interesting,

Love,
Grandpa Buchanan

Family History Research at the Provincial Archives of Alberta

 Old records of birth, marriage and death can be found at the Provincial Archives of Alberta in Edmonton.

Some of these are available online, others may require a free visit to the archives building.
According to their website, these records are available online:

Birth, marriage, and death records are called Vital Statistics. The Provincial Archives of Alberta holds hundreds of thousands of vital statistic records.

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)

To access a vital statistics registration, start here.

What other useful things do they have?

When I served as a volunteer at a Family History Centre, about 15 years ago, I would visit the Provincial Archives after my shift was over, and I experienced a lot of success.

Local Histories of Alberta Communities, containing life sketches of family members. I discovered that Dad's brother and sister both played on local baseball teams in the Telford district, west of Millet, And there were so many interesting stories. 

Wills and Probates I found interesting family details there as well.

Church Records proved that Dad and his siblings were wrong, Their cousin Nate Watson was not adopted. His christening record proves it. And so much more.

Homestead Records a lot of early Albertan had homesteads. It is easy to check, who when and where.

Burials do not seem to be listed on the website, but I found burial and death records there that I could not find anywhere else.

If you are looking for information about early residents of Alberta, maybe check the Provincial Archives online or in person.