Anglican Registers Project
The Anglican Church has had a presence in New Brunswick since 1768 when the Rev. John Eagleson was sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to minister to the people living in the Tantramar area of present-day New Brunswick. Many more priests arrived in 1783 along with the United Empire Loyalists and as they established new congregations they started recording many of the events of church life - baptisms, confirmations, marriages, burials and others. Beginning in the 1960s the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton attempted to gather and preserve these records and, while the process is not complete, there are now 755 registers of various types being held by the Diocesan Archives. (You can read more about the history of the Diocesan Archives by clicking here.)
In May 2018 the New Brunswick Genealogical Society and the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, which now manages the Anglican records on behalf of the Diocesan Archives, agreed to scan and transcribe the many registers and then to make them available to the public on the NBGS website. Recruitment of a technical team and a large group of transcribers started in August 2018 and, following a pilot phase, the transcription project got under way in January 2019.
Many of the registers are very fragile and require delicate handling. Scanning these registers and then enhancing the images takes a lot of human resources and some expensive equipment. As of April 2019 over 250 of the registers have been scanned and sent to NBGS and more arrive periodically. These registers require considerable processing before they are assigned to transcribers and the Project Status report shows the number that are actually available.
Project Status
This report is based on the processing status log - an internal system-generated tracking mechanism. The processing status log is updated automatically as registers are being transcribed.
The counts for records that have already been proof read depend on the corresponding flags being set in the data entry system.
The records have been scanned for some errors and anomalies. If problems were found, an "issue" was created for the record. An issue was also created if the record was flagged by the transcriber or proof reader as needing review.
| Number of Registers |
184 |
| Number of Spreadsheets |
229 (some registers have multiple spreadsheets) |
| Number of Spreadsheets Completed |
124 (54.1%) |
| Number of Records Processed |
104,435 |
| Records with proofing done |
66,409 (63.6%) |
| Total Number of Issues in the Records |
1,961 |
| Open Issues in the Records |
1,437 (73.3%) |
| Names in name index |
234,958 |
| Last Extraction Date |
30-Jun-19 |
Project Completion Report
| Expected Number of Registers |
755 |
| Expected Number of Spreadsheets |
939 |
| Remaining Number of Spreadsheets |
810 |
| Average Spreadsheets Completed per Day |
0.767 |
| Estimated Days Remaining in Project |
1,051 |
| Project Start Date |
15 Jan 2019 |
| Expected Completion Date |
16 May 2022 |
Search Facility
The Technical Team is currently preparing the initial search facility, which should be ready to roll out in July. It is expected that non-members will have access to a basic search mechanism and the image of the appropriate original register. Members will receive more complete information that will allow for more efficient searching.
The search facility will fully implement the privacy rules used by the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.
