The Provincial Archives of New Brunswick and the New Brunswick Genealogical Society (NBGS) are working together to digitize about 650 registers from the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton. The registers contain baptism, marriage, and burial records from across the province, dating back to the 1780s.
Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick, circa 1850. Painting by Lady Anna Head.
NBGS, which enjoys a close relationship with the provincial archives, approached the archives about their members working on a project, and both parties agreed the Anglican registers were an ideal collection to transcribe.
As the provincial archives scans the pages in each register, it sends the images to the genealogical society, where members have volunteered to transcribe the records.
Once a register is fully transcribed, the transcriptions will be made available on the NBGS and provincial archives’ websites, and they will be searchable.
Joanna Aiton Kerr, manager of services and private sector records at the provincial archives, told The Daily Gleaner in Fredericton that digitizing these records will be significant because they include information collected decades before 1888, when the federal government legally required records of births and deaths be kept.
As for timing of the project, Dave Laskey, NBGS webmaster, said he is hopeful the first fully transcribed register will be available on the NBGS website by February or March. Other registers will follow as they are transcribed.
Photos of a register can be seen in a CBC report.
This is fabulous news. One branch of our family were United Empire Loyalists, we think, but a number of members of the families came to New Brunswick and with first names repeating it has been hard to pin them down. This should help so many!
This is great news – I have a number of Loyalist family members in those records. 🙂
Always looking for the Harris, Ballard. Brown family from Doaktown NB and my grandmother Harris the Campbell’s from Upper Blackville area