The homestead records contain the earliest agricultural settlements of Saskatchewan. Each database may be searched by the name of the applicant, the land location or by the type of the special land grants. If the researcher wants more information, they are invited to go to the archives to view the original record.
The index includes those who bought and sold North West Métis land; were given South African veteran scrip (payment in land grants); or who had received soldiers' grants following service in the first world war.
"We are very much in the preliminary planning stages, but we hope that the records themselves will some day be completely digitized and available to researchers on the World Wide Web," said Saskatchewan's Provincial Archivist, Trevor Powell.
The information is available online at www.saskhomesteads.com.
* Homesteads were granted to settlers in lots of 160 acres, for the required application fee of ten dollars. Males (18 years or older), as well as male and female heads of family, could apply. However, they had to prove that they were British subjects before applying.
