The naming of an individual can offer insight into the worldview of the name giver, including perspective on their religious, national, ethnic, and gender identities. The culture of people of African descent in North America during the eighteenth century is particularly difficult to research using the standard historical record because of their lack of representation among written documents. Continue Reading »

Children suffering in any form will always cause a reaction from parents and making the right choice isn’t always easy.  It was no different when Dr. John Jeffries inoculated children at the hospital on Georges Island near Halifax, Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century. Continue Reading »

For the next three weeks, we are very pleased to feature series of posts authored by undergraduate students from Dr. Wendy Churchill's University of New Brunswick History course, "Medicine and Society in the Early Modern British World" using Loyalist Collection resources.   Continue Reading »

Our first post on palaeography generated a lot of interest and discussion (thank you, readers!), so we decided to create another post with even more background, tips, examples, and help for those trying to interpret historical cursive writing from the British Atlantic World. Continue Reading »