Post–Deportation Argyle – First 50 Years of Catholic Parish Records 1799-1849

Acknowledgements

'An Acadian Parish Reborn' has been a massive project, much larger than originally anticipated when undertaken by the Argyle Township Court House Archives. Core activities were begun in the spring and summer of 2008, with funding assistance from the Provincial Archival Development Program (PADP), administered by the Nova Scotia Archives on behalf of the (then) NS Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. Jennifer Surette, a student at Université Sainte-Anne, acted as the overall project manager.

In addition to producing an index to the records, scanned images of all original documents are provided on this website, plus a transcription of them. Researchers can therefore view either the original record, or a typed transcript, or both. The original records have not been translated, though the index should provide sufficient clarification for Anglophone users.

Digitization of the registers was carried out during the summer of 2008. The Court House Archives was able to borrow all eight original registers for Sainte-Anne's parish, and the digital images were captured using an HP Scanjet 4070 Photosmart scanner (2400 x 2400 dpi; 48 bit). The master files of these images were scanned at 300 dpi, grayscale, and saved as TIFFs. The files were later converted to JPEGs for mounting on the Nova Scotia Archives website. The remaining registers (Saint Pierre, Saint Michel, Saint Ambrose) were all scanned at the same specifications, but from microfilm copies of the registers, using a Canon Microfilm scanner 300 and Capture Perfect 3.0 software.

During summer 2008, the main transcribers, scanners and proofreaders of the transcripts were Jennifer Surette, Laura Surette, Kelly Meuse, Danielle Pierce, Adam Newell, Thomas Dulong, Jeanelle d'Eon and Alyssa Moulaison. Derrick Cottreau was employed from January to the end of March 2009 to carry out much of the indexing. When this proved impossible for one person to accomplish in three months, two volunteer indexers, Doreen Anderson and Raymond Bowers, stepped in and provided hundreds of hours of help as well.

Tidying up and final details were carried out by Jennifer Surette during summer 2009.

The project has been managed overall by Peter Crowell CG(C), Municipal Historian & Archivist at the Argyle Township Court House Archives, who has also written and compiled the introductory materials. These materials were all created in English; translation into French has been done by Joseph N. Muise, Halifax, NS, with proofreading by Jennifer A. Surette, Sluice Point, NS.

Finally, the Nova Scotia Archives has been a partner in this project from the beginning, agreeing to mount the finished product on their website. The resource is large enough and complex enough to create future technical maintenance problems for a small archives with limited staff. The NS Archives' willingness to carry this product on their website, with a link from our own website, means that 'An Acadian Parish Reborn' will be sustained and maintained in the future for all researchers interested in, and appreciative of the information contained in this resource.

Peter M. Crowell, CG(C)

Joseph N. Muise

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