Re: Packer family Tree

Creating a family tree is like solving a puzzle. You need to collect as many pertinent facts as possible, use them to make logical assumptions which will bound and direct your investigations to confirm or refute the assumptions and lead you to the ultimate facts you seek which define your family tree.

You undoubtedly have more information about your grandfather than you may realize. For example, what is the birth year of your father? What aunts and uncles do you have on his side of the family? What are their birth years? Who is the oldest and what is his/her birth year? Make an estimate if you don’t know exactly, allowing 1 or 2 years between the birth year of each. That birth year of the oldest will be about 1 or 2 years after the likely marriage year of your grandfather. From that you can subtract 18 to 30 years to obtain a range of years for the likely birth of your grandfather. If you know the year of his death or a year that he was definitely not living, you can compare that to the likely range of birth years to determine if the two estimates are reasonable or adjust the estimates accordingly. Then you can look for a Harold Packer who lived in that range of years. Bounding your inquiries thus is much better than looking for all Harold Packers.

Likewise, don’t you have any family traditions that suggest the residence, the employment, possible military service, the religion, or other characteristics of your grandfather?

What are the first and middle names of other descendants of your grandfather? Often, children or grandchildren have first or middle names of ancestors. Middle names are sometimes the maiden names of mothers or grandmothers, thus giving a possible clue to the name of the wife ofyour grandfather.

By expanding your query about Harold Packer with additional possibilities, you help others to recognize data they have that may interest you and you help yourself to focus on pertinent evidence in libraries, museums, census records, cemetery records, and online databases.

You mentioned the towns of Sundre and Bowden in Alberta, Canada. Each of these towns has a website. You might look for libraries and museums in those towns and write to or visit them and look for newspapers, town records, cemetery records, business registers, etc. as well as look at the town histories for clues to any Packer families living or working there at some time.

The surname Packer may be confused or exchanged with the surname Packard. If you should find the name Packard appear in your search, I would be most interested and might be able to help you since I have collected data on several thousand Packards, fourteen (but no Harolds) in Alberta, Canada.

Good luck!

Dick Packard
Littleton, Massachusetts, USA