Other important sources of vital statistics are denominational newspapers published in the Maritimes in the 1800's. Although they dealt with and recorded secular matters, they were strongly affiliated with various religious denominations; consequently, it was the vital statistics for members of these denominations that tended to be reported in these newspapers. The two sets of volumes held by ATCHA, containing vital statistics excerpted from Methodist and Presbyterian newspapers, were both published in very limited numbers.
The earliest newspapers published by the Wesleyan Methodists in the Atlantic Provinces are on deposit in the Maritime Conference Archives, United Church of Canada, located at the Atlantic School of Theology, Franklyn St., Halifax, NS. With the permission of the Maritime Conference Archives Committee and the curator, Ruth and Ross Burgess, Middleton, NS, compiled seven volumes of abstractions of marriage and death notices from original copies of church newspapers still available. ATCHA's call number for the series is 929, .2, Bur, and volume number.
All the volumes in this series are titled Marriage & Death Notices from Methodist Newspapers of the Atlantic Provinces, and they cover the following years:
All the notices, whether marriage or death, in all volumes are arranged
alphabetically. They provide a name, event (marriage or death), date, other related
information, name of the Methodist newspaper in which the information was found,
publication date, volume and number.
For example (from p. 147, Vol. #7):
| PARKER Isabella, w/o John Parker d. 23 August at Aylesford East, in 34th yr. Dau of Thomas & Dorothy WILTON. Prov Wesleyan Wed 30 September 1863 Vol 15 #39 |
Note that the capitalization of a last name within an entry (such as "Wilton" above), indicates a cross-reference entry in the same volume.
ATCHA is able to look up a specific name and provide single copies to researchers. For more extensive searches or listings researchers should contact the original compilers:
Ross and Ruth Burgess