New Brunswick, Canada Genealogy

Guide to New Brunswick ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

New Brunswick History

 * New Brunswick is a province in eastern Canada. Its capital is Fredericton.
 * The territory was originally part of Acadia, which France lost to Great Britain after the Seven Years War (French and Indian War).
 * Following the final defeat of the French in 1755, more than 5,000 Acadians were forced into exile from their lands by the British. Some of them escaped to what was then a remote and relatively uninhabited coastline along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Baie des Chaleurs, where these Acadian settlements grew and thrived. Today, this region is known as the Acadian Peninsula.
 * Before 1784, New Brunswick was part of Nova Scotia.
 * When New Brunswick was established in 1784 it was divided into eight counties. As the population grew the original counties were divided and new counties set up.
 * The counties are subdivided into civil parishes.

Loyalist Colonization

 * In 1783, refugees loyal to the Britain (loyalists) began to colonize the area. They were relocating after the American Revolution and came from as far south as Georgia and as far north as Massachusetts.
 * These refugees were not all of British origin, but included German, Dutch and Black Loyalists.
 * The Black Loyalists included a number of freed slaves, but there were a small number of loyalists who brought their slaves with them to New Brunswick.
 * By 1785, so many refugees had landed and settled at the mouth of the St. John River that the King granted a charter to the new City of Saint John, the first incorporated city in Canada.

Later Settlers

 * In the 1840s, Scottish and Irish settlers began to settle in Saint John and the Miramichi River region, as a result of the Potato Famine.
 * Later immigration included a few hundred Danish settlers in the 1870s, whose communities in Victoria County exist today.
 * A significant number of Jewish immigrants came through the Port of Saint John from the 1890s to the beginning of the First World War. A number of these immigrants remained to form Jewish communities in Saint John, Moncton and Fredericton.
 * Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistani and African Canadian communities have been established over the past century in the major cities.

FamilySearch Resources
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in researching your family.
 * Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
 * Learning Center - Online genealogy courses
 * Historical Records - databases and record images on FamilySearch
 * Family History Center locator map
 * Name Variations in Canadian Indexes and Records