Nova Scotia Archives

Deaths 1972

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 deaths 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 death records from 1972.

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, cause of death, 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
Required fields are: place of death and county, first and last name, gender and date of death
Give close attention to first and middle names as well as the place of death, city or town
Enter a specific location that can be found on Google Maps
Choose a county from the pull-down menu
Additional fields may be filled in for the deceased, spouse, parents and cause of death
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.