New Brunswick Church Records

Canada New Brunswick  Church Records

Church records contain baptisms, marriages, and burials. Very few of these records for New Brunswick are indexed and most of them are located in the parish itself. Requests for information should be addressed to the individual church. To find the name and address of a church, use the church locator feature on each denomination's web site or consult a church directory. To obtain further information about various denominations, contact the denomination through their web site, telephone or address listed below.

Many records of births, marriages and deaths are not kept by governments. In New Brunswick the registers kept by churches and missionaries, those that have survived, are held in many places.

Methodist records are in the United Church archives, Presbyterian registers may be there or with the Presbyterian archives, and if the family said they were Episcopalian check both the Church of England and Methodist Episcopal records. Church of England Parish Registers are kept by the individual Anglican Diocese archives; those of the Roman Catholic Church are also with their Diocese, but the Diocesan boundaries of the two denominations are different.

Anglican
This collection is in the possession of the Diocese of Fredericton but has been located in the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick since 1988. You will find documents from the 1600s to 1994 but the dates most predominant will be from 1800 to 1950. The Diocesan Archivist acts as liaison between the two groups. The collection does not circulate. No charge is made for searches but donations to PANB are gladly accepted.

An excellent three-part description of this collection has been written by Harvey Malmberg, Diocesan Archivist, and Twila Buttimer of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. Briefly, the organization of the Diocesan Archives reflects the organization of the Diocese―that is, records created by any one organization (Parish, Deanery, Bishop, etc) are kept together as a unit and then the records within that unit are arranged and described. Records of the Parishes, which account for approximately half of the collection, are first arranged alphabetically by the name of the Parish and within each parish the records are organized under pre-determined headings, such as vestry records, parish registers, correspondence, etc. At PANB all of the Anglican records that were transferred from the previous archives are held together under Manuscript Collection 223 (i.e. MC223). However, some Anglican records arrived at the archives as part of other collections and therefore are filed in the other collections. An example might include items such as historical articles on a particular church or family histories contained in a Historical Society Collection.

For more information about the Anglican diocese holdings, contact:

Twila Buttimer, Archivist c/o Provincial Archives of New Brunswick P.O. Box 6000 Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 5H1 Telephone: 506-453-2637 Email [mailto:twila.buttimer@gnb.ca twila.buttimer@gnb.ca]

Searchable Databases Related to Anglican Records A searchable database of baptisms, burials and marriages for Gagetown Parish of the Anglican Church, Queens County, New Brunswick is available. A word of caution: this has been transcribed from a transcription so there may be errors. Researchers are advised to use this only as a finding aid and to seek out the original records.

Anglican Church of Canada General Synod Archives 80 Hayden Street Toronto, Ontario M4Y 3G2 Telephone: 416-924-9192

Anglican Diocese of Fredericton Archives Frank Morehouse 33 Alban St. New Maryland, New Brunswick E3C 1E4 Telephone: 506-459- 3637

The Anglican Book Centre Anglican Church of Canada 600 Jarvis Street Toronto, ON M4Y 2J6 CANADA Telephone: 416-924-1332 Fax: 416-924-2760 Internet: http://www.anglican.ca/index.htm

Baptist
United Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces 1655 Manawagonish Road Saint John, NB E2M 3Y2 CANADA Telephone: 506-635-1922 Fax: 506-635-0366 Internet: http://www.baptist-atlantic.ca/

Some early Baptist registers are in the Maritime Baptist Historical Collection held at:

Atlantic Baptist Archives Acadia University Wolfville, NS B0P lX0 CANADA Telephone: 902-585-1412 Fax: 902-585-1748 Internet: http://www.rootsweb.com/~canns/baptist.html

A complete list of these records is found in Robert F. Fellows’ Researching Your Ancestors in New Brunswick, pages 226–36. These records are not available through interlibrary loan.

Presbyterian
The Presbyterian Church of Canada 50 Wynford Drive North York, ON M3C 1J7 CANADA Telephone: 416-441-1111 Fax: 416-441-2825 Internet: http://www.presbyterian.ca/

Roman Catholic
Call the local diocese to obtain the appropriate information.

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada 3250 Bloor Street W. Etobicoke, ON M8X 2Y4 CANADA Telephone: 416-231-7680 ex. 4036, 416-231-5931 Fax: 416-232-6004 Internet: http://www.united-church.ca/

THE DROUIN COLLECTION:

Drouin Collection 1621-1967 at Ancestry.ca. When searching these databases, be creative in the spellings as well as the various focuses in searching for an ancestor. The French language has many possible spellings for a name, as well as there are errors in the indexing.

This French-Canadian collection has over 15 million genealogical and vital records entries; they were microfilmed by the Institut Généalogique Drouin. In Quebec, under the French Regime, there were two sets of records kept: a copy for the civil government archives and a copy for the ecclesiastical church archives. The Drouin collection is a civil copy of these entries. Please note that the cutoff date of this collection is in the early 1940s; only a small percentage of entries were covered from 1948 to 1967.

This collection is divided into six databases: 1. Quebec Vital and Church Records, 1621-1967 2. Ontario French Catholic Church Records, 1747-1967, 3. Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records, 1695-1954, 4. Acadia French Catholic Church Records, 1670-1946, 5. Quebec Notarial Records, 1647-1942, and 6. Miscellaneous French Records, 1651-1941. For details about these six databases, see "The Drouin Collection: Six Databases" at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/The_Drouin_Collection:_Six_databases.

Acadia French Catholic Church Records, 1670-1946: This database only contains the French Catholic parish records from the old Acadia. In the 1600s and early 1700s, Acadia covered today's provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as Prince Edward Island and part of Quebec (i.e. the Gaspé Peninsula). The types of records include baptisms, marriages, and burials as well as confirmations, dispensations, censuses, statements of readmission to the church, and so on. They are written mainly in French, as well as English, Latin, and Italian. A great number of church registers have been microfilmed by the National Archives of Canada. A list of their holdings is found in their Checklist of Parish Registers.

The registers of over three hundred Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches are on microfilm at the Provincial Archives which can be ordered through interlibrary loan. A list of their holdings can be obtained from the archives.

Many of the above-mentioned registers are on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City or at local Family History Centers.

United Church Records
The United Church of Canada Archives holds the local church records of the United Church and its uniting denominations (Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian—1925 union; and Evangelical United Brethren joined in 1968). The records of the churches which did not join at union but remained part of the continuing Presbyterian Church in Canada after 1925, are held at:

Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives and Records Office 50 Wynford Drive Toronto, Ontario M3C 1J7 Telephone: (416) 441-1111

Maritime Conference Archives, United Church of Canada 21 Wright Street Sackville, New Brunswick E4L 4P8 Telephone: 506-536-1334 ext. 208

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:


 * New Brunswick Marriage Registers (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * New Brunswick Provincial Returns of Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)