As Chairman of the Family History Research Group of the Medicine Hat and District Genealogical Society (MH&GS), we receive through the MH&GS website, numerous requests from around the world from individuals wanting information about a family member or relative who may have had, at some point, a connection to Medicine Hat. We endeavour to respond to these requests in order to promote family history or genealogy.
A recent request from a woman in Michigan in the United States of America seeking a birth certificate or birth record of her paternal grandmother who was born in Medicine Hat (1918) and who has since passed away was very interesting. The stated purpose of obtaining the birth record by the granddaughter was in support of a desire from this American to obtain a record or proof of Canadian citizenship.
As an amateur genealogist and local historian, I decided to investigate.
The result, from my perspective, creates an interesting political and legal anomoly.
