The Minutes of the New Brunswick County Courts of General Quarter Sessions are a rich historical source, valuable to a variety of types of researchers including social historians, law students, criminologists, educators, and genealogists. Formatted transcriptions and nominal indexes have been and posted with the corresponding catalogue records on The Loyalist Collection website to make this significant and valuable work accessible to researchers.
Microfilm copies of the New Brunswick County Court records are found as part of The Loyalist Collection, with the originals residing at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. The transcription project involving these records has been ongoing within the former Microforms Department for the past fifteen years, involving many members of staff and student assistants.
County Court Transcriptions and Indexes which are posted and publicly available on The Loyalist Collection website:
o Northumberland County Court Marriage Records and Northumberland County Court Minutes
o Sunbury County Court Minutes
o Charlotte County Court Minutes and Charlotte County Marriage Register
o St. John County Court Minutes
Background Information
The Sessions Court functioned as the local government body with both judicial and administrative authority within the counties of New Brunswick. The eight original counties of New Brunswick—Charlotte, Northumberland, St. John, York, Westmorland, Sunbury, Queens, and Kings—were established when the province was formed in 1784 and divided into parishes for administrative purposes. The Loyalist Collection has records covering the late eighteenth and much of the nineteenth century for all the above counties, divided by their historical boundaries.
The Esquire Justices or justices of the peace were at the head of the court system, which originated in eighteenth century England and was brought to New Brunswick via loyalists from New England. Justices both created and enforced county and parish law. Particular families often dominated key roles locally. Constables, clerks, criers, sheriffs, coroners, and treasurers were also central officials in the county court system.
Types of items included in the County Court records included: lists of justices; lists of parish officers; proclamations; petitions; criminal matters and trials (usually for assault and assault and battery, sometimes larceny, liquor license violations, and bastardy); tax assessments; Grand and Petit Jury lists; discussions of boundaries, roads, common lands, ferries, jail and court house buildings; livestock regulations; “bear bounties;” and “corn bounties.”
Generally, the records have been divided into two main sections: matters dealing with crime and county administration. Within these two categories there are many subcategories. For example, under county administration (using the term “Court Orders”) are found appointments, tavern licenses, teachers’ licenses, treasurer’s accounts, etc. Under crime (using the term “Offences”) are various cases, which include listing of Grand Jurors, Constables, Esquire Justices, witnesses, recognizances, and Grand Jury presentments involved in the case.
Finding aids feature nominal indexing and, in some cases, transcription of cases and subject content. Using these finding aids, it makes it much easier to locate names (particularly of males) who were settled in the communities found in early New Brunswick counties for a number of years. Therefore, the nominal indexes are key for research of individuals and those engaging in family history research as well as marriage listings. Other content in the records is extremely valuable to work in legal, crime, health, educational, transportation, agricultural, timber industry, fishing, community networks, settler-Indigenous interactions, court buildings, local governance, and general social history in the province of New Brunswick.
For examples of how the content in records may be used, see posts from Atlantic Loyalist Connections related to the New Brunswick County Court Records:
Parish Officers of New Brunswick: Timber to Turkey
The Lords of the Land: Justices of the Peace in Loyalist Saint John
The Abel Sands Mystery: A Case of Bastardy (Part One) and (Part Two)
First Nations and Local Court Records of New Brunswick: Negotiated Relationships
Crime in Saint John County: The Routine and the Ridiculous
A definitive ranking of the top seven ridiculously “evil” instances in Saint John County
“De Iure”: Latin Legalese in New Brunswick Court Records
Also see document “Glossary for the New Brunswick Court Records.”