New Brunswick Newspapers and Magazines (National Institute)

Newspapers and Magazines
The New Brunswick Newspaper Directory 1783-1996 is a revised edition that came out in 1996. An advertisement by the Saint John Free Public Library, noted that an earlier edition included some 650 titles. That sounds about right. There were a great many small local newspapers published in New Brunswick during the 19th and early 20th centuries and they contain a lot of information about the people who bought and read them.


 * “What areas of the Province would be covered by the newspapers?” Before 1860 existing newspapers tended to cover the Saint John River Valley from Woodstock, Carleton County to Saint John City. The Mirimichi region, Charlotte, Kings, Queens and Sunbury Counties were well represented by the regional papers. Regretfully, newspapers covering the French Acadian population did not appear until much later. Therefore there is only occasional mention of inhabitants of Restigouche, Madawasks and Kent. ” 

Being from Saint John, D.F. Johnson ignores Westmorland County, but then, the Borderer and Westmorland and Cumberland Advertiser only started publication in 1856 and the very title should warn you that it served both sides of the border with Nova Scotia.

Time Travel Made Easy
Reading your ancestor’s daily or weekly newspaper is time travel made easy, but take care if you are actually looking for specific facts and events. Concentrate on the task; do not be distracted by gossipy accounts of elopements, or court cases, or other local feuds and scandals. On the other hand, do have a look at social notes and “Arrivals in Town” before and after a wedding or funeral.

Newspapers Have Family Trees
If your library has either of the New Brunswick Newspaper Directories, they will give details of publication dates, changes of titles, and mergers. The 1996 edition’s “Appendix A”, titled “Publishing Histories”, shows these changes and mergers for newspapers in every community in the province in family-tree form. Issue 42 of Generations (December 1989) has an abridged version (pages 46-51). Be alert to the newspapers’ title changes when citing sources.

Finding Who Has Them
A slightly limited source of information is Library and Archives Canada website where you can find a list of the newspapers LAC hold in microform (but not what other institutions have, sorted by province). This gives bibliographical details as well as dates of publication.

Now out of date, but a way of locating 19th and early 20th century titles not available at LAC, is the hard copy Union List of Newspapers Held by Canadian Libraries (1983). An older source will be the 1959 Canadian Newspapers on Microfilm. The books are easier to use than the list issued on 33 microfiches: Union List of Canadian Newspapers (Ottawa, 1988) which brings together bibliographical data on some 10,000 titles. This is the sort of research tool that only a librarian could love, or perhaps explain to you.

The PANB list local newspapers in each of their County Guides and the years they are available. Do cross-check this information against LAC’s lists since the holdings of the two institutions differ. LAC probably has a better selection of French-language papers than the PANB, but the Université de Moncton will undoubtedly have the best French-language holdings in the province. On October 20, 2001 the Canadian Council of Archives launched the Canadian Archival Information Network (CAIN). This website provides searchable access to descriptions of most of the holdings of archival institutions across Canada, with regular updates on new accessions.

Indexes
LAC’s website also includes an updated Checklist of Indexes to Canadian Newspapers Held by the National Library of Canada. It is helpful, particularly in indicating which libraries hold card-index files for local papers. For a genealogist working in Texas, a card file in Moncton is not much use, but if what you want to know is limited and you can phrase your question simply, such libraries might check their card index and send a brief answer. Some published indexes to individual newspapers may be available through inter-library loans, others may be available from the compiler.

Daniel Johnson
For comprehensive indexes to all newspapers, New Brunswick is the best served province in Canada. Before his untimely death, Daniel F. Johnson, CG, had published 102 volumes of Vital Statistics From New Brunswick Newspapers (also available as a searchable database on the PANB website). The volumes are available in many libraries, and if you use these you will find the later volumes are unpaged but the entries are numbered. The index in each volume refers directly to the entry number. However, 102 volumes, even when you can find a complete run, are a challenge to search.

Johnson, however, started this project in conjunction with the NBGS about 1980, when personal computers were just coming into use. He computerized (now we say digitized) his data almost from the beginning and developed a vast database of names and entries. He made it available and ever more accessible as technology improved, and on his death it was turned over to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick who now offer it as a searchable database online at their website.

What is Indexed?
The dates range from 29 January 1784 to 31 December 1896. The volumes cover almost every English-language newspaper in the province, a couple from Halifax, and Le Moniteur Acadien (Shediac), a total of 75. The entries transcribed total 298,097, with 311,514 unique names. The entries pick up not just the birth, marriage and death notices, but shipwrecks, coroner’s inquests, accounts of NB natives who marry or die in foreign parts, passengers bound for the gold fields of Australia or California, Irish rioters, biographies of prominent men, accounts of drownings, accidental shootings, dynamite mishaps and suicides, and New Brunswickers receiving their law and medical degrees in universities abroad.

For example, by 1892 (Volume 85) newspapers were printing photographs and these too are indexed. I opened it at random at September 3, 1892 when the St. John Daily Sun appears to have printed a special feature on Moncton, with a number of pictures and biographical notes on prominent citizens. A few pages later there is a list of all the pupils applying at the Normal School in Fredericton.

Entries in early volumes are shorter but still cover a variety of disasters, and index the estate notices in the Royal Gazette. Volume 1 covers thirty plus years 1784-1815, Volume 2, eight years 1816-1823, Volume 3, 1824-1828, and with each succeeding volume the time span shrinks, the number of pages increases.

Accessing and using the online database is easy. From the New Brunswick Archives homepage: click on Search and Newspaper Vital Stats (Daniel Johnson). This brings you to an introductory page with a large picture of Daniel F. Johnson and a choice of: Introduction; Scope; Name Index; and, Full Text Search. The first two will explain the nature of the database and what it includes. Click on Name Index and you will be asked to select the initial letter the name.

There are 2,317 names beginning with C. You can then filter the results by adding further letters of the surname. Do not type in the initial letter, just those that follow.

For Example:


 * C[hapman]
 * Click on: [apply filter] and the results produce: “1 name found / Chapman”
 * Click on: CHAPMAN, which produces page 1 of 110; my grandfather A. Cavour Chapman is on that page; there is another filter box for first names or initials.
 * Each search result gives: Name, Date, Newspaper, Place, County.
 * Click on the line you want and you get the full transcript of the entry.

The “Full Text” search could be useful in many cases. Read the instructions and follow them.

NOTE: The following disclaimer appears on almost every screen. Remember it.

Read It For Yourself
Indexes are fine, but there is nothing like actually reading the paper, and those four-page 19th century weeklies do not take that much time to scan. Most can be obtained on microfilm through inter-institutional loans. Just be careful not to get caught in the “same name trap”. There is more than one Gazette, Royal or otherwise, as well as Globe and Sun, Times and Gleaner. There is a Chatham in Ontario as well as New Brunswick, St. John’s, Newfoundland and St. Johns (St-Jean) Québec are not Saint John, New Brunswick. Spell it out in big letters (shout). Remember, New Brunswick is the province Upper Canadians forget. If you live in a community with a university library, check their newspaper holdings. Often what is available will depend on some professor’s special project, rather than the location of the library. Confederation in 1867 can result in a selection of newspapers from the 1860s. However, Murphy’s Law of research says the run will end just before the event you need to document.

Early New Brunswick Newspapers
The Royal Gazette and New Brunswick Advertiser’s first extant issue is dated October 11, 1785. Published in Saint John until 1815, then in Fredericton, it was the official paper in which the government announced appointments and printed notices of new legislation. In the early days, like the official Gazette in most colonies, it functioned somewhat like a newspaper, but marriage and death notices were limited to very important people and the best most family historians can hope for is some paid announcement about an estate.

Other publishers in the main settlements soon filled the vacuum: in Saint John the Saint John Gazette (1784-1807) and the New Brunswick Courier (1811-1865), were among the earliest, and in Chatham, the Chatham Mercury (1826-1829) then the Gleaner (1829-1880) served the whole Mirimichi and Northumberland County area. The numbers of newspapers, mostly weekly or semi-weekly proliferated in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The contents of these papers were in large part reprinted from British or American sources, but the editorial, a couple of columns of local news, some death and marriage announcements (very few births) and the advertising or notices by local businesses will offer a good record of community affairs. James A. Fraser’s history of Chatham, By Favourable Winds, makes extensive use of the newspaper notices and advertising in his biographical listing of the residents of the town and is a good example of what to look for beyond the begats.

Which Paper Did Your Folks Read?
The Telegraph-Journal (Saint John) changed its title on November 7, 1989 to New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, to reflect its province-wide news coverage, but it served a province-wide audience as soon as the railways were running. In the 1930s in Moncton, the Moncton Daily Times arrived before breakfast, the Telegraph Journal was the noon paper, it came in by train, and the Moncton Transcript was delivered in the late afternoon.

You have already been told that the Moncton Times was Conservative, the Moncton Transcript, Liberal; my grandfather took both to keep tabs on his political friends and enemies, as well as the Telegraph Journal for world and business news. Saint John was, even in the 1930s, an important port, so the papers have a lot of shipping news, though not as much as Halifax.

A lively account of Moncton’s politically-based editorial rivalry is given by John Edward Belliveau, “Hawke of the Transcript: A forgotten hero of Canadian journalism”, The Beaver, volume 77:4, August/September 1997, pages 35-37.

French-language Newspapers
The Acadian population has been less well-served, but there were two papers published in the Moncton area: Le Moniteur Acadien (1867-1926) and L’Evangeline (1887-1982). The Université de Moncton has published Inventaire du “Moniteur acadien,” 1867-1926, a selective index of articles of Acadian interest, and those with genealogical and family history information. Check their webpage and lists of publications to see what other more recent indexing has been published. There are some, for limited time spans, and you might be lucky and find they include the years you want.

In Bathurst, LAC lists Le courrier des Provinces Maritimes published from 1885 to 1899 and 1900 to 1903, as well as many short-lived local publications that sprang up in the 1980s to replace L’Evangeline. If you need to locate French-language newspapers, consult the Centre d’Études acadiennes at the Université de Moncton.

Magazines and Periodicals
There are always a few local New Brunswick magazines, but they come and go because of variable financial support and editorial burnout. We have mentioned some of the older serials such as the New Brunswick Historical Society Collections and the New Brunswick Magazine, as well as Clement Avard’s Tribune Press and his Busy East (1910-July 1933), which became the Maritime Advocate, (1933-1956) and turned into the Atlantic Advocate (September 1956-January 1992), moving to Fredericton under the wing of the UNB Press.

The Maple Leaf, a monthly magazine published in Oakland, California, by Michael Ambrose McInnis and his partner Walter V. Harrington, was aimed at an audience of Maritimers who had left home, keeping the wanderers in touch with their roots and the folks at home. News items came from Maritime newspapers, contributions of readers and correspondents who sent in lengthy letters about the Maritimers in their area. The first issue came out in February 1907, the last, March-April 1947, after the death of McInnis March 28, 1947. Obituaries were an important feature of the magazine. Extra copies of The Maple Leaf were stored in his printing plant, and were destroyed when the plant burned April 23, 1967. To know more, see the Atlantic Advocate, June 1986, pages 31-33.

Acadiensis, established in 1971 at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, is a journal of regional history devoted to the study of Atlantic Canada. It is published twice a year, the issues running to some 200 pages. Articles are indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index, Canadian Magazine Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index among others.

Current Publications
If you want to write to a local paper, be careful of older reference works like Canadian Serials Directory (1987) which may lurk in reference libraries but list periodicals and newspapers, with addresses etc. active in 1987. For currently published papers, try to find a recent copy of Matthews’ List, which is brought out several times a year, listing all Canadian advertising media including newspapers.