Monday, August 4, 2014

Irish In 19th Century New Brunswick Newspapers

The newspaper database on the New Brunswick Irish portal is made up of a collection of articles from a range of 19th century newspapers from the province. A detailed breakdown of the years of publication is not provided for all papers, but some, such as the Saint John True Liberator was first published in 1847.[1]

New Brunswick Irish Portal Newspapers Database

It does not seem that all articles from all editions of the newspapers are included. Rather, a selection that are most relevant to the history and genealogy of the Irish in the province have been digitized. An unusual but interesting feature of this database is that the selected articles from the newspapers are divided into the following helpful sections:

"Information Wanted" Advertisements
"Reminiscences of New Brunswick"
Affairs and Conditions in Ireland
Agriculture
Assisted Emigration
Cards of Thanks and Commendations
Censuses
Cholera
Conditions in New Brunswick
Confederation and Union of the Colonies
Customs, Exports and Imports
Education
Emigrant Hospital, Almshouse and Lunatic Asylum
Emigrant Societies
Employment and Trades
Illness, Disease and Quarantine
Irish Culture
Juvenile Emigration
Legal Affairs
Miscellaneous
New Brunswick Emigration Office and Emigration Agents
New Brunswick Land Settlement and Colonization
Out-migration
Passage Conditions
Passage Notices and Other Advertisements
Passenger Act
Pauper, Orphan and Emigrant Relief
Physicians and Health Officers
Poetry
Politics
Religious Affairs
Riots
Ship Wrecks and Accidents
Small Pox
Speeches, Debates and Lectures
St. John Board of Health
St. Patrick's Society
The Famine and Irish Relief
The Fenians
Typhus/Ship Fever
Vessel and Emigrant Arrivals
Views on Emigration
Views on the Irish

A quick search of the famous (and unfortunately small number of) 'information wanted' adverts finds articles with priceless genealogical information that can be so hard to find for immigrants from the mid 19th century: year of immigration, names of family members, and exact place of origin in Ireland. Some articles in the "Assisted Emigration" section report on the arrival of the thousands of assisted emigrants from the Gore-Booth estate in Co. Sligo, while there are also articled about societies that operated in the province.

Articles in this database come from the following newspapers:

New Brunswick Courier
New Brunswick Reporter and Fredericton Advertiser
New Brunswick Standard
St. John Liberator Irish Advocate
The Freeman
The Gleaner and Northumberland, Kent, Gloucester and Restigouche Commercial and Agricultural Journal
The Herald
The Morning Freeman
The New Dominion and True Humorist
The New Freeman
The Saint John Gazette and the Weekly Advertiser
The St. John Daily Sun
The Standard or Frontier Agricultural and Commercial Gazette
The True Humorist
The True Liberator
Times

You can access the database by clicking here.

Note - I have previous written about other databases from the New Brunswick Irish Portal: Brenan Funeral Home records, Fitzwilliam Estate Emigration Books, Irish Immigrants in New Brunswick Census 1851 & 1861, and the Teachers Petition Database.


[1] New Brunswick Provincial Archives. Introduction. Year unknown. http://archives.gnb.ca/Irish/Databases/Newspapers/?culture=en-CA: accessed 11 July 2014.

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