THE scale and impact of Irish migration to New Brunswick during the first half of the 19th Century was considerable
and one of the many papers to be presented at the Heritage Symposium last week were treated to a rare mini guided tour of the Provincial Archives of the area by internationally renowned archivist Marion Beyea and Denis Noel, who heads the sound and m
oving image branch of the Archives.
Highlighting the important role migrants from the north west played in developing communities in Canada, Marion and Denis used the database to show how descendants or original migrants turn increasingly to archives as a means of developing and maintaining their sense of cultural identity, as well as showing how ongoing archival work has helped illustrate migration and settlement pattern in New Brunswick between 1815 and 1855.
Among the items to whet the appetite were photographs, documents, maps and Census data.
"If people in the north west, or elsewhere, are interested in demographics then this identifies individuals and where they were from and many are from Ulster, and so it would feed into any kind of study," said Marion.
"It shows who came to New Brunswick from where, or where did the settlers from the north west go and how long did they stay. The Protestant numbers leaving the north west were larger than the Catholic were. Londonderry and St John were a fixed route almost. Like most people they were looking for a better life, I guess.
"The importance of Symposiums like this include putting people in touch with each other so that people know what's being worked on in archives. People know what is being worked on in our Archive and now we are working to present it in a way that is useful to them and it is always stimulating to hear the research that is going on."
