Nova Scotia
Archives

Transcribe is the Nova Scotia Archives’ collaborative online workspace where the public can participate in enhancing access to our collections documenting over 300 years of Nova Scotia history, people, and culture. This is a great opportunity for participants to deeply experience our collections and index historical vital statistics.

Civil registration of births in Nova Scotia began in 1864, continued to 1877, then lapsed until 1908, when the province resumed record-keeping. Since 1 October 1908 the records have been maintained without interruption. This year we are working with birth records from 1923.

Individuals born in the province before 1908 who wanted their births officially recorded had to apply to a 'delayed registration' procedure at the Vital Statistics Office. Many of the 'late' registrations included additional information submitted to support the application, such as family Bible extracts, census abstracts, and copies of church-register entries. Again, we are working with delayed birth registrations for those born in 1923.

Please enter the record as accurately and completely as you can. You are also welcome to index additional content from the record like father's and mother's names, address, occupation, etc. We welcome your feedback – contact us or join the discussion on Facebook.

Transcribing Tips

• Save your work frequently – every 15 minutes – if you don’t save before you navigate away from the page, your work will be lost!
• Read the record carefully, zoom-in to see more details
• Enter a specific location that can be found on Google Maps
• Choose a county from the pull-down menu
• Contact us or join the discussion on Facebook — ask fellow transcribers if you get stuck on a detail, find something interesting or have a tip to share with us.

FAQs

Q: Do I have to register?
A: No, registration is not required. You may use your name but it is not mandatory. If you enter your name you will be able to search for records you've been working on. Our system will not track you nor contact you. You can simply skip login but you won't easily be able to find the records you work on.

Q: I’m stuck! What do I do?
A: Invite the “crowd” to help you. Join the discussion on Facebook and help each other. Contact us and we’ll try to help too.

Q: What happens to finished records? 
A: Records, once complete, reviewed and approved, will be downloaded and added to our online collections at //archives.novascotia.ca/vital-statistics/ as full-text for searching and reading. This will enhance searching by names, dates and locations.