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 Roots on immigration or passport papers may designate "German" if the pioneer sailed from Hamburg, Germany. Also German speaking immigrants may be designated as Russian if this was the nation which issued the exit passport. There were German speaking immigrants from Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. Another consideration in tracing ancestral roots is country border changes as well as spelling changes of various languages for example... Bukowina or Buchenland is German, Bukowina is Polish, Bucovina is Romanian, and Bukovyna is Ukrainian.
Germans from Russia were mainly Mennonites of Dutch and German origin who had migrated to Russia before coming to Saskatchewan c1900. First Catherine the Great and Czat Peter III offered an invitation to foreign settlers of free land, freedom to practice religion, local self-government and exemption from compulsory military service. Then again in 1804, Czar Alexander I of Russia and Imperial Government of Germany offered free homesteads and money, cultural freedoms, military exemption and tax exemption for a number of years. At the time of the Napoleonic Wars 1804-1810 these promises looed appealing, and a huge wave of Germans to Russia occured. Under Czar Alexander II, in 1871 priveleges were revoked, policies were changed and these concessions were withdrawn. Russian language was to be taught in schools, local autonomy was lost and no exemptions from military service.
The Homestead Act of 1862 invited these settlers proud of their heritage to the U.S.A... homesteads in the Dakotas. Again free one quarter sections, free one quarter section pre emptions, and frere one quarter section wood lots. These homesteaders had bad implements and poor success breaking the land in the Dakotas.
The Dominion Land Act of 1872 now attracted settlers to Canada. "...One hundred and sixty acres of land was offered... to each settler who paid a filing fee of $10.00 and who resided on the land for three years. The settler, during that time, was required to build a domicile and to break at least fifteen acres of his land." 1, again these Germans from Russia migrated, many settling near Allan, (Curzon, District of Assiniboia, NWT), Rosthern (Rosthern, District of Saskatchewan, NWT), Dundurn, Neudorf, Saskatchewan. German Catholic or Russland Deutsche who had fled to Romania and Russian Ruled Ukraine then emigrating to the U.S.A. and then to Canada.
The Russian Revolution of 1905 There have been German settlements near Rouleau, Wilcox, and Avonlee. The drought of 1880 did encourage the earliest settlersto have stock as well as an agricultural livelihood. The shortage of water at Neudorf causes yet another migration for those settlers, some going to nearby colonies to the North and West or South to Grenfell. Some Neudorf settlers travel to Manitoba and others to Texas, some returning.
Another migration of about 1,000 Sudetan Germans took place when Hitler tookover their home land in 1939. They were granted refuge in the Lloydminster Gen Web Area, north west Saskatchewan. The refugees boarded either the Samaria or the S.S. Montcalm from the Sudeten Mountains in North Bohemia of Czechoslovakia settling in St. Walburg, Brightsand, Goodsoil, Waterhen, Loon River, Makwa, Barthel, Flat Valley and Loon Lake . In 1940 many left to help in the industrial war factories in Quebec and Ontario.
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