Place:Hardwicke, Northumberland, New Brunswick, Canada

The village of Hardwicke is located on the Miramichi Bay, 6.58 km east-northeast of Point Gardiner in Hardwicke Parish, Northumberland County. It was first called French Village for two Acadian families (Muzeroll and Robichaud) who settled in the area in the 1760's; renamed Noble Settlement for John Noble, who bought land in the area; and finally renamed Hardwicke when post office was created. The post office in Hardwicke existed 1853-1970. In 1866 Hardwicke was a farming and fishing community with approximately 6 resident families, including 4 Noble families; in 1871 Hardwicke had a population of 75, and included Eel River. (In 1866 Eel River was a farming settlement with approximately 26 resident families.) In 1898 Hardwicke had 1 post office, 2 stores, 2 hotels, 3 churches and a population of 500. (Source:Place Names of New Brunswick)

Black River-Hardwicke is now a Local Service District in Northumberland County, New Brunswick. The three communities of Black River Bridge, Black River and Hardwicke are part of the LSD. (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".