Anyone else watch Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency on Netflix? If I had a genealogy business, I would call it Jennifer’s Holistic Genealogy Agency. My very first case would be the case of the unknown bigamist. I wish I could write about how I have solved this case but unfortunately I cannot.

I first heard of this case from my great-aunt, who told me E’s sad story. A long time ago (before my great-aunt was born), E moved from Manitoba to Alberta and married a man. They had two kids together and then one day there was a knock at the door. It was the police. It turns out E’s husband had already been married and he was arrested and put in jail for bigamy. E moved back to Manitoba to be with her family and remarried. Her new husband adopted her two children and they took their stepfather’s surname and that was that.

I got in touch with E’s grandchildren and told them if they ever needed help genealogy-wise, I would be happy to help. The problem at the time was that the Alberta archives were stuck in the Stone Age, and had no online index or anything to search to see if I could find E’s marriage certificate. Furthermore, I could not even write to the archives to request it because of their privacy policies. Only a descendent could do so, and this would probably involve a trip to the notary. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I put the case out of my head until I received an email from my local genealogical society with a link to this blog post that has links for finding birth, marriage and death records across Canada (bookmark it, it’s a great link). Lo and behold, the Alberta archives had finally entered the modern age and now had an index of marriages I could look at! Hurrah! I quickly went through the list and located E’s name, followed the instructions, made a payment (a paltry 37 cents, plus shipping) and waited for the document. After so many years, this mystery would be solved.

Finally the document arrived. I excitedly ripped open the envelope, scanned the marriage document and realized that this was not the correct person. While this person shared the exact same first and last name as E, the parents listed on the marriage certificate we’re not E’s parents. When I went back to the index, hoping to find another entry with E’s name, I did not find anything. Back to the drawing board.

What’s next? E’s grandchildren are doing DNA tests, so that presents another way of solving the case. And I am determined solve it, regardless of the method used. Hopefully it won’t involve time travel or deranged assassins, though.