There once was a website online by Mary and Don Saban which served as a regional hub for genealogy of a loosely defined area of the Rocky Mountains. The website itself was largely old school html replete with animated gifs and genealogy affiliate ads, but there were some nuggets of genealogy information that could be found on its pages too. Of the two, Donald and Mary, Mary was the genealogist actively posting online her family tree and creating the website. Unfortunately, Mary passed away on 20 Dec 2017 and with her went the active website called Genealogy Along the Rockies. There is an archived version if you were aware of information that you need and was found on the website – we link to it below. The website domain itself was picked up by a restaurant in of all places, Melbourne Australia, which billed itself as Genealogy Coffee & Wine Bar called Genealogy Along the Rockies. It appears to now be out of business. It was an interesting title for a coffee and wine bar and I expect it was simply an SEO play on an old domain that had expired.
Here is how Mary Saban described the Rocky Mountains area of coverage:
By strict definition, the Rocky Mountains stretch from the Laird River in British Columbia south through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico to the Rio Grande River, the southern border of the United States. We are expanding that definition, as many do, to include the mountain ranges in Alaska (in particular the Selwyn Range in the Yukon and Brooks Range in Alaska) and the Sierra Madre Mountains in Northern Mexico. From the early Native Americans to the later European settlers and others, people live in the mountains and in the areas both east and west of the mountains. For this project, in addition we are including all of British Columbia in Canada, Yukon Territories, Alberta Canada, western North Dakota, western South Dakota, western Nebraska, western Kansas, western Oklahoma, western and southwestern Texas, the areas on both sides of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico, eastern Arizona, eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington as well.
Link to archived website
Some Nuggets of Historical and Genealogical Material
The following are some nuggets of information that was online their website that can be found online elsewhere.
- Colorado Stage-Coach Companies
This article outlines the history of numerous stagecoach companies operating in Colorado primarily in the mid to late 1800s. A.J. Oliver & Company started in 1862 and extended to several cities, including Salt Lake City and Montana, but lost a mail contract to Ben Holladay. Other notable companies include Banning Stage Line, which operated between key California cities, and the Butterfield and Company, which established the Overland Mail service from St. Louis to San Francisco. The Leavenworth & Pikes Peak Express and Gilmer & Salisbury were significant routes in the Central Overland and Western Stage companies. Wells, Fargo & Company became a dominant player by the 1860s. Various other companies served regional routes, extending across the West and Midwest as the demand for mineral transport and mail delivery grew.
Suggested Alternatives to Genealogy Along the Rockies
Suggestions of pages for you to visit to replace this archived website, using the definition of the Rockies provided by Mary:
- Free Alaska Genealogy
- Free Colorado Genealogy
- Free Idaho Genealogy
- Free Montana Genealogy
- Free New Mexico Genealogy
- Free Utah Genealogy
- Free Wyoming Genealogy
- British Columbia Genealogy