Place:Saint Hilaire, Madawaska (county), New Brunswick, Canada

Saint Hilaire is located 8.8 km east of Baker Brook, on the road to Edmundston in Saint Hilaire Parish, Madawaska County. It was first called Bakers Creek and had a post office by that name 1848-1873. In 1866 Bakers Creek was a farming settlement with about 53 resident families including 5 Daigle and 9 Long families. It was renamed in 1873 with Saint-Hilaire Post Office in existence 1873-1948 and 1968-1970. In 1898 Saint-Hilaire was a station on the Témiscouata Railway and a community with 1 post office, 2 stores, 1 cheese factory, 1 church and a population of 200.

Saint Hilaire included Albertine which was a settlement named for Victoire Albert. Albertine had its own post office 1892-1968. In 1904 Albertine was a settlement with 1 post office, 1 store, 1 cheese factory and a population of 25:

Saint Hilaire was incorporated as a village in 1967. (Source:Place Names of New Brunswick)

In the Canadian census of 2011, Saint Hilaire had a population of 303. At this point the Saint John river valley is cut between two sets of peaks. The town is roughly 200m above sea level, while a peak of roughly 1000m can be seen nearby. Frenchville, Maine is across the river. The steel truss Clair – Fort Kent Bridge is upriver about five miles, while downstream the next border crossing is the Edmundston–Madawaska Bridge (also a steel truss). (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".