NOVA SCOTIA PLACE NAMES

Our last case study for this lesson is Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is broken down into Counties. Counties are broken down into townships. A township in Nova Scotia consists of the area of 100,000 acres or twelve miles by twelve miles containing habitable land. Township books of vital records exist often for years prior to the settlement of a community, often because it was New Englander’s who migrated to Nova Scotia and set up a system similar to that of the New England states. Thus these books can be just what is needed to locate the place name of the original settlers in that area.

In 1881, over 98% of Nova Scotia’s residents belonged to one of seven ethnic groups: Scottish, English, Irish (these first three were 77.43 % of the total); German 9.5%, French 9.4 %, African 1.6%, Mi’kmaq (original Native Americans of the area) .5%, and others 1.6%. The groups tended to cluster in specific counties. With these numerous ethnic groups, you should expect name changes. A modern Leslie might have originated in the 18th century as Laessle; modern Haverstock may have originally been Oberstahl.

I hope you have seen the value of interpreting properly the word you find in your records so you won't spend time search records in an area where the source will not be found. Although, I have found that sometimes you must do that initial search just to see if the family did live in that area for a short time prior to coming to the United States.