Start your research in Charlotte County FIRST, by seeing if your village or area really is in Charlotte County. If not, go to Canada Geographic Names (English & French versions available).
Then check out the Surnames page to see if anyone else is researching your name.
Learn about official vital records in New Brunswick and Canada.
Have you searched on line at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (PANB)? Have you searched the various parishes within Charlotte County?
Church Records:If you want to find a Catholic Church marriage prior to the 1900s and the PANB County Guide shows a microfilm, but says it's RESTRICTED, what do you need to do? According to the County Guides with restricted church films you need to get the church to send a letter of permission directly to the Archives. If borrowing a microfilm thru Interlibrary Loan, you need to get them to do that plus send a copy of the permission to you. You then need to send a copy of that permission with the film request. [per Derek Nichols]
Land Records: The original registry books, from ca. 1785-present, are still held by the Charlotte County Registry Office now call Service New Brunswick, which is located in St. Stephen at Ganong Place. It was formerly in St. Andrews but was moved a few years ago. You can also check the Land Grant Database at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (PANB). The Probate Office is in with Service New Brunswick at Ganong Place andrecords from the 1950s are there.
Microfilm copies of the registry books are held in at least 3 locations PANB in Fredericton, the Charlotte County Archives in St. Andrews, and the St. Croix Public Library in St. Stephen. The latter two only have reels up to the mid- to late-1800s, but I assume PANB would have everything that has been filmed. Unfortunately, PANB did not make its land registry, microfilm available on interlibrary loan the last time I checked (unlike most of its other film, which is available). [Courtesy of Craig Walsh]
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (PANB), has published a guide to each County. In it they list the type of records they have, and go into further detail with microfilm numbers. Here's the Charlotte County List. You may go to your local library and request to borrow up to 3 microfilms from PANB. The service is usually free. and is called the Inter Library Loan (ILL) program.
Use the search engine on the site, BUT try only using the first 3 letters of the surname you are interested in. People were not the greatest spellers in the 1700s and 1800s. They wrote down what they heard. ie. Alise/Alyce = Alice
Residents of Charlotte County move freely back and forth across the St. Croix River into Maine. If you don't find it here in Charlotte County, check our neighbors: Washington County, Maine or Nova Scotia GenWeb . Newall Hall's website, Downeast Genealogy has a lot of great data for Washington County, Maine.
Do you think they went to the US . . . The Maine State Archives has "SOME" Naturalization Records, but NOT for Cumberland County. The US District Court in Portland, Maine no longer has Naturalization Records. They were all sent to the National Archives in Waltham, Massachusetts, which has the naturalization records for New England before 1906. They are indexed. If you can give them the full name and approximate dates, they will do a search. If they find the record, you will have to pay $6-$10 (I forget which) for up to 10 pages. You can email them from the NARA site.
Chipman Memorial Hospital (CMH) was in St. Stephen, but has been torn down. Charlotte County Hospital is located in St. Stephen, and Calais Hospital across the river in Calais.
Our official links, New Brunswick's Gen Links will lead you to other New Brunswick Genealogy data.
We hold chats on "Maritime Genealogy". Here's the Chat Room Schedule
The Charlotte County Query Board is a place to ask questions about your Charlotte County relatives. All messages posted on this board also automatically appear on the Charlotte County, NB Mailing List.
Sign up for the New Brunswick Mailing List - a great tool with lots of discussion about NB Genealogy.
Got a Calendar of NB Family Reunions.....post a notice of it here for all to see.
Finally, you might consider joining the New Brunswick Genealogical Society- Charlotte Branch (NBGS). They publish Generations, a quarterly magazine.
Go here to learn how to conduct genealogy research in Canada
PAGE UPDATED Oct 2004