"Probate Court Records (RS71) Probate is the legal validating of a will or settling of an estate if no will exists. It empowers the executor to act on behalf of the deceased to disburse the assets of the estate. Prior to 1984, each county in the province had a court of probate. Following legislation passed in 1983, the province was divided into nine (9) judicial districts for the purpose of probate.
Probate Court Files These may include some of the following documents: wills, petitions, affidavits letters testamentary, letters of administration, inventories, bonds, renunciations, correspondence, and other items.
Probate Court Books contain transcripts of the basic legal documents found in the files but there have been instances of something being in the books and not in the files."
What is included in the Probate Records Project? The project consists of 492 reels of microfilm covering all fifteen counties.
- Charlotte – 85 reels
- Kings – 82 reels
- Saint John – 74 reels
- York – 66 reels
- Carleton – 33 reels
- Queens – 28 reels
- Westmorland – 25 reels
- Restigouche – 23 reels
- Sunbury – 21 reels
- Victoria – 17 reels
- Albert – 11 reels
- Northumberland – 10 reels
- Gloucester – 8 reels
- Kent – 5 reels
- Madawaska – 4 reels
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Progress Reports: As of 12 Mar 2025, our volunteers have indexed and proofread 114 microfilm reels which is about 23% of the project.
A contract between PANB, UNB and NBGS was signed on 11 March 2024. Scanning the microfilm began almost immediately and took seven months to complete. Indexing began once the first batch of scanned images was delivered to NBGS, and is ongoing.
Join the team:
- Are you a member of NBGS?
- Are you familiar with using spreadsheets? (you don't need to be an expert)
- Do you have some spare time?
- Can you read old cursive handwriting?
If you can answer "yes" to all these questions,
contact us for more information and join the team of indexers and proofreaders!
updated Mar 2025
