Where is Home?

The province on New Brunswick has been a place that I have travelled through on my many trips between Nova Scotia and Ontario, so it was with great interest that I turned to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick and their website, "Where is Home? New Brunswick Communities Past and Present" archives.gnb.ca/Exhibits/Communities/Home.aspx?culture=en-CA

The study of placenames is called toponomy, and there are more than 4,600 placenames of settlements, cities, and communities throughout the province. They are described completely, including why and how they received the name - by the post office, railways, and settlers for example.

Links are provided to 4784 land grants and other maps, and there is a total of 960 photographs and 600 documents about the founding, incorporation, and development of 144 of the communities.

If you go on the site, you will also find the latitude and longitude of the settlement, the county it is in, the parish it is in, and a map giving its location.

On the "Alphabetical Listing" page is the community of placenames, a county listing, an index, and a number of definitions on keywords in their description of the place.

The "Exhibit/Home" page brings an excellent history of placenames to the researcher, and at the end, it lists the books from which this information was taken.