Cemetery
Database
on
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick website
Mum had received a letter at
Christmas
from a cousin with an inquiry as to the date and details of the death
of
a relative who had been killed many years ago in a train accident at
Westfield.
Thus Mum was on a hunt this evening to find some information. She
removed
chocolate boxes tied with ribbon from the drawers of the sideboard and
placed
their contents on the kitchen table. More than once, she remarked, that
if
she could only get to the cemetery in Hampton, she would be able to
find
the date of the death on the tombstone.
Family researchers often spend many hours wandering through cemeteries
trying to locate gravestones with their genealogical information. This
search could be time consuming and very frustrating. Realizing
the need for making cemetery inscriptions accessible, many individuals
donated their transcriptions to archives and libraries. As the number
of these lists accumulated a better way of indexing, organizing and
accessing became necessary.
The Capital Branch of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society set about
gathering the data for the cemeteries of York and Sunbury Counties,
creating a searchable database, and providing access on the internet.
They approached the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick as a partner
in the project.
Today, 99,220 records of 428 cemeteries of 12 counties of New
Brunswick are available on the database at PANB at http://archives.gnb.ca/.
The database is updated on an on-going basis, so check the 'Statistics'
link for the latest information.
Searches can be done of the entire database by surname. A click on
‘Statistics’ will give you the lists of cemeteries for each county.
Once you choose the cemetery you are interested in, a surname index is
provided.
Of the 952 records of 116 family names in the St. Paul's Anglican
Church Cemetery in Zealand, York County, I found 14 records for the
Hughson name.
In the MacDonald's Corner Baptist Cemetery, Queens County, there were
30 family names with 104 records. Four individuals had the surname
Briggs: Elizabeth - 1859, Elizabeth A. - 1849, Ephraim -
1863, Rebekah R. - 1852 and Sarah - 1882. The details
provided for marker 4 gave the information that Ephraim Briggs
was aged 71 when he died on Jul. 24, 1863, Rebekah R. Briggs was
aged 21 years when she died on Jan. 9, 1852 and was the daughter of
Ephraim and Catherine, Elizabeth A. Briggs
was 26 years old when she died on Jun. 2, 1849 and was also the
daughter of
Ephraim and Catherine Briggs. Marker 41 lists Elizabeth Briggs who died
at
age 60 years on Nov. 15, 1859 as the wife of William Straight.
Sarah Briggs on marker 14 was 57 years old when she died on Oct. 27,
1882 and was the wife of John Jones.
St. Agnes Roman Catholic Cemetery, Debec, Richmond Parish, Carleton
County has 263 records of 73 family names with 21 for the surname
Crabbe.
Searching the entire database for Sullivan, I found 135 records.
There are many cemeteries throughout New Brunswick that could be added
to the database at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. If you
have a list of transcriptions that you are willing to contribute or you
are willing to volunteer to transcribe a cemetery, contact provincial.archives@gnb.ca.
The goal of having all New Brunswick cemeteries placed online can be
reached with your help.
