Place:Doaktown, Northumberland, New Brunswick, Canada

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the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Doaktown (2011 population: 793) is an incorporated village in Northumberland County, New Brunswick. Until it was incorporated in 1966 it was part of Blissfield Parish.

It is situated on the Southwest Miramichi River and was first settled in 1807 for use as a base for the growing lumber industry in central New Brunswick. United Empire Loyalists came to the area after the American Revolutionary War and pooled the money needed for a land grant and received a grant under Ephriam Betts, the leader of the group.

Later, when the Doak family moved to the area from Ayrshire, Scotland, Ephriam was experiencing financial difficulty. Robert Doak was able to purchase a large amount of the original land grant and built a farm and grist mill on the property. As the population grew, Robert Doak became a prominent citizen in the area. He served with the government in several capacities, including magistrate and justice of the peace.

When the post office first came to the area, a name had to be chosen. Since Robert Doak was a prominent citizen, the area was named after him, originally as Doakton. However, it was later changed to Doaktown as it is today.

The village has a prosperous lumber industry including a sawmill.

Atlantic Salmon fishing is also a very popular sport in the area attracting people from all over the world to fish the legendary Miramichi River.

Doaktown is now a community within the rural community of Upper Miramichi in Northumberland County, New Brunswick. Upper Miramichi became a rural community on 17 March 2008, having formerly been a local service district with the same name. The rural community includes sixteen neighbourhoods in the county of Northumberland and in the northeastern corner of Stanley Parish, York County stretching between McGivney and the village of Doaktown including Astle, Big Hole Brook, Bloomfield Ridge, Boiestown, Carrolls Crossing, Hayesville, Holtville, Ludlow, McGivney, McNamee, Nelson Hollow, New Bandon, Parker Ridge, Porter Cove, Priceville, and Taxis River. The municipal offices are located in Boiestown. (Source:Wikipedia)

Research Tips

• New Brunswick Provincial Archives. This is the introductory page. The tabs will lead you to more precise material.
• The FamilySearch wiki. This lists the availability of vital statistics indexes for New Brunswick.
• New Brunswick GenWeb. A round-up of a lot of genealogical information at the province, county and parish level. Lists of cemeteries and monumental inscriptions can be found here.
• The Provincial Archives website titled The Placenames of New Brunswick has maps of all of its parishes and descriptions of some communities within them. This site contains "cadastral" maps for each parish illustrating the grantee’s name for land granted by the province. These maps are cumulative, showing all grants regardless of date.
• Microfilm images of all Canadian censuses 1851-1911 are online at Library and Archives Canada, as well as at FamilySearch and Ancestry. The 1921 census appears to be available only at Ancestry.
• The CanGenealogy page for New Brunswick. An overview of available online sources with links written by Dave Obee.
• More possibilities can be found by googling "New Brunswick province family history" and investigating the results.
• The word "rencensement", found in Sources, is French for "census".
• Local written history online.