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| Douglas Brymner (Dominion Archivist) July 3, 1823 - June 18, 1902 |
Douglas Brymner became Senior Second Class Clerk in 1872, and was responsible for the creation of a national archives in Canada. The government had voted for $4,000 to be spent in overseeing the collection of records, and in undertaking "general archival responsibilities".
Two archives that I use on a regular basis are the Nova Scotia Archives www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm and the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick http://archives.gnb.ca/archives because I have relatives in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The NS Archives astounds me every time I go to it – there is always something new. I have searched their vital records and have found births, marriages, and deaths there; I have searched through one of their virtual archives, 'Seeing Yarmouth': Celebrating 250 Years of Community Life, and have found areas there that interest me; and I have spent hours reading the Nova Scotia Historical Newspapers from Shelburne, finding my family name (Barclay) in them.
Go to www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual to get a complete listing of their Virtual Archives.
The archives in New Brunswick holds Nova Scotia newspapers, and I found things here that I couldn't find anywhere else, especially in their Daniel F. Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics webpage at http://archives.gnb.ca/APPS/NewspaperVitalStats/?culture=en-CA. So it is well-worth a look, as they are adding to it all the time.
If you go to the Archives of Manitoba website at www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives looking for estate records, take a look at the Winnipeg Estate Indexes, 1870-1983 webpage at www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/probate/wpg_estate.html.
I was lucky to find what I was looking for (for many people did go "Out West" when it was opened to find their fortune), and you just may be lucky enough to find your people listed in the estate indexes.
And, of course, I always come back to the Library and Archives Canada's (LAC) website at www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
One area that is worth a look on their website is the Search All search box, found in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Just put the name of the person you are looking for in the box, and you can search through four of their portals - "Library", "Archives", "Ancestors", and "Website" to see if there's a match.
You may be as surprised as I was when I discovered that a relative in the Boer War received a land grant from Canada, even though he had fought with the British in South Africa instead of with the Canadians!
So there is lots of information to find at these archives, either through the Internet, or by inter-library loan. All that one has to do is ask!
Tomorrow's Blog: Ontario Genealogical Groups
