Saint John Almshouse Records

I have featured a number of databases on this blog from the New Brunswick Irish Portal over the last number of months (see the end of this post for a full list of links to previous articles). Another one worth highlighting is the Saint John Almshouse Records, primarily for the Irish place of origin information in these records.

This database covers the years 1843 to 1897 and is made up of two different sets of registers - St. John [sic] City Almshouse Admission Registers, 1843-1897 and Saint John Almshouse Admission Registers, 1843-1884. A number of city institutions are covered in these registers, namely the Alms and Work House, the Emigrant Infirmary, and the St. John Emigrant Orphan Asylum. These institutions were created due to the arrival of large numbers of poor emigrants from Europe, in particular Ireland.

The structure of the search facility is slightly different when compared to the websites of the commercial and non-profit behemoths. Firstly, you can pre-select the amount of information that is returned from searches. Some of the information, such as collection, page, given names, and surname is automatically returned, but there is a sizeable list which is optional. This include: admitted by, age in years, age in months, age in days, condition, nativity, date landed, died/discharged, date of death/discharge, place of origin, parish of residence, time in house, time in province, vessel, vessel type, vessel master, religion, departure, landed, and remarks. However, information was not necessarily collection for each heading.

Secondly, the collections can be filtered and they are categorized by archival number. St. John [sic] City Almshouse Admission Registers, 1843-1897 make up the MC249 collections and Saint John Almshouse Admission Registers, 1843-1884 make up the MC700 collections. It is recommended to read the introduction and 'About the Records' to fully understand this record set and database.

Many of the records for those born in Ireland return a county of origin, making this a particularly useful database to consult.

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, Teachers Petition Database, and Irish in 19th Century New Brunswick Newspapers.