Yarmouth Nova Scotia Genealogies, by George S. Brown, and Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, by Leonard Smith Jr. and Norma H. Smith, are two prime sources for tracking ancestors in or from Nova Scotia.
Yarmouth Newspaper Genealogy Columns Name 60,000 Immigrants
George Brown’s newspaper columns, published between 1896 and 1910 in the Yarmouth (Nova Scotia) Herald, dwelt almost exclusively on New England families who migrated to Nova Scotia around the time of the Revolutionary War. Many, of course, were Loyalists who supported England in that war and were pressured to leave the American colonies.
An interesting aside is that many of these families descended from the Mayflower pilgrims. Brown traced these families from their earliest known origins across the Atlantic to the end of the 19th century. In effect, these collected columns published in book form in 1993 are a virtual encyclopedia of Nova Scotia families.
Who’s Who of Nova Scotia Families
The list of families covered reads like a Who’s Who of Nova Scotia families, many with descendants who not only returned to the United States, but also spread across English-speaking Canada.
Brown’s 186 articles were put together as a collection by Martha and Bill Reamy, who copied them verbatim and indexed them. The articles give a wide variety of genealogical data for 60,000 individuals. The resulting 956-page book was issued in 1993 by the Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD, and can be purchased from online booksellers.
Nova Scotia Immigrants
There are very few published resources on Nova Scotia immigrants prior to Canadian confederation in 1867. To help rectify this situation, Col. Leonard H. Smith, a certified genealogist, and Norma H. Smith, decided to pull scattered resources together. During the decade they devoted to this project, they constructed a vast index to Nova Scotia families.
The resultant Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867 presents, in Part 1, data abstracted from dozens of manuscript sources in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and from archives in Fredericton, Church Point, Ottawa, Boston, London and Paris, and in Part 2, data abstracted from more than 450 articles in Nova Scotia periodicals.
Listed by Family
This vast collection of material has been marshalled into alphabetical form by family surname and the entries contain such information as occupation, place of origin, age, family members, name of ship, date of arrival and military affiliation. The result is a 560-page book published in 1992 by the Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD. Copies are usually available from online booksellers.
(A companion article lists the major surnames in George Brown's newspaper columns and a related article gives a source for thousands of pages of data on Scottish immigrants to North America.)
Rosemary E. Bachelor - Rosemary Bachelor, a prize-winning journalist, has had a career as an editor, feature writer, magazine publisher and author. Her latest ...
