Talk:Newfoundland, Church Records Inventory - FamilySearch Historical Records

Too little information in place name
Newfoundland, for genealogical purposes, is a very closed set of documents. Place names are commonly duplicated throughout the province. Familial naming patterns also cause great confusion in the records. Often, the only way to separate these same-name people is by the geographical region in which they live. In most places this is done by township or county. In Newfoundland, a predominantly coastal geographical area, communities are identified by Bays and often, for political reasons, by Districts. One example: There are two places names Trinity, not very far apart as the crow flies. People in both Trinity's share common surnames, and there are certain Christian names that are quite common between the two communities. This resulted in several people having the same name being alive at the same time, and in a couple of instances, men with the same names marrying women with the same Christian name. The only way to tell some of the people in these situations apart is by knowing which ones were from Trinity, Trinity Bay, and which ones were from Trinity, Bonavista Bay. Another example: I have fifteen men with the same name in my records in a 150 year period. Two of them married women who had the same name. This meant that these two women now shared the same surname as seven other women who were born with that Christian name. The only way to keep these people straight and the records accurate is to 1. identify place names by Bay and/or District, and 2. identify records by religion. You can see an excellent example of this by going to this site: http://ngb.chebucto.org/