Thomas Cusack died in Boston on May 8, 1908. His body was brought to Saint John on the CPR train and the funeral was held at the Cathedral. A Burial Permit was issued on May 12, 1908 stating that he was 60 years of age at the time, single and had been born in Kings County but had resided and died in Boston. The cause of death was pulmonary embolism. The undertaker was John O'Neil and interment was in Barnesville.

I think Dad must have been related to Tom Sawyer. He had a way of making Cliff and me think it was a privilege to help him with the planting of the garden.

We spent Friday evening sitting in the horse barn on over turned nail kegs cutting seed potatoes. 

Dad's constant reminder was, "Each piece must have a good eye!"

By the time the task was finished, we could hear the frogs peeping in the swamp and the moon was getting up.

When we went into the house, Mum took the oatmeal porridge from the double boiler and filled our bowls. I sprinkled lots of brown sugar on mine before I helped myself to the cream.

Cliff and I were up early on Saturday morning, anxious to help with the planting. Once the potatoes were dropped and covered, Dad let us put the peas and corn into the drills.

For the next few weeks, we visited the garden often to keep a close watch on the plants that were growing.

Many family researchers are watching the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick's garden grow. Instead of watching for the beans to sprout they are eyeing the growth of searchable on-line data bases.

The new database in the PANB garden this week was the Index to the Saint John Burial Permits (1889 - 1919) with 33,283 entries. The index includes the name of the deceased, age, date of death, place of birth, burial permit reference and the microfilm F-number whereon the permit may be viewed. Burial Permits were issued under an order of the Board of Health for the City of Saint John to enable the Board to determine the cause of death and the possible presence of contagious diseases. Although burial permits are primarily confined to those individuals who died within the boundaries of the City of Saint John, I have found permits for a body that was being transported through Saint John to the place of burial. A Burial Permit was filed for Thomas Cusack who died in Boston on May 08, 1908 and his body brought home to Kings County for burial.

An added feature of this database is the capability of searching the given birth place by a county in New Brunswick. Twenty two-hundred permits gave Kings County, 1129 gave Queens County and 18,739 listed Saint John County as place of birth.

The individual permits themselves requested the name of the deceased, date of death, age, marital status, if a married woman - husband's name, residence, place of death, occupation, place of birth, name of father, birthplace of father, place of internment, cause of death and name of undertaker. These permits can be viewed on microfilm at the Saint John Free Public Library.

The Late Birth Registrations of Births (1810 - 1904) database deals with folk whose births were not registered and it was necessary to provide the government with proof that they had been born.

Although not all births were registered, the County Birth Registers Index (1801 - 1899) gives information on more than 79,600 births in New Brunswick.

The Indexes to New Brunswick Marriages (1887 - 1919) include the names of the bride and groom, date of marriage and all references necessary for the researcher to locate the marriage certificate on microfilm which gives the age, residence, place of birth, marital status, religion, names of parents, name and residence of witnesses, date, by whom married, whether married by license or banns, signature and postal address of clergy and the signatures of the bride and groom.

More than 150,000 names are in the Index to Death Certificates (1920 - 1949) and each includes the name of the deceased, date of death and county where death occurred.

The Death Registration of Soldiers (1941 - 1947) lists the names of 1295 soldiers with their residence, date of death, where killed and age.

23,318 individual records can be found in the Irish Famine Database - Migration to New Brunswick (1845 - 1852)

Thousands of names appear in Hutchinson Directories (1865 - 1868) and Lovell Directory (1871)

The Land Grant Database (1765 - 1900) provides records of the distribution of crown land grants.

There are currently 643,267 records available for on-line research in the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick's garden of databases at http://archives.gnb.ca/Archives/EN/default.aspx

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Query 98-661
Burnett - Goodine - Tippett - Souther - McKim: I am looking for information on the following families in New Brunswick: 1) Descendants of Alexander Burnett 1791-1865 who arrived in N.B. (Irish Settlement / Waterloo / Joliff Brook area) in 1816 from Ireland with his wife Margaret. They had at least 7 children: John Alexander; Elias; Sarah Ann; Isabella; Samuel; James H. and Mary Jane.  John A. married Elizabeth Reed.  Their children were: James E. - my great-great-grandfather who married Margaret Goodine; Sarah and Samuel. 2) Descendants of Benjamin Tippett 1812-1876, who arrived in Saint John in 1832 from Cornwall. He married Eliza Souther and they had 9 children including Benjamin Jr. who married Jane McKim of Milkish Creek. He owned Tippett and Goldsworthy Shipbuilding. 3)  Descendants of John Souther who arrived in Saint John about 1830 from Menheniot, Cornwall with his wife Mary May and 10 children. I am interested in locating anyone with any connection to these families. I have a lot of information to share and I would like to learn about other descendant lines.
 -Edith Tippett, 456 1/2 Brian Lane, Saint John, NB, E2M 1R4. Telephone (506)-672-3955.  E-mail to etippett@nbnet.nb.ca.

Query 98-662
Danahy - McKenna: John Danahy (1820 - 1893) and Ann McKenna (1832 - 1895) settled in Waterford, Kings Co. and raised 12 children. John is noted in his obituary as coming from Ireland. I am not certain of when or where he immigrated from Ireland but I believe that it was between 1845 - 1850.  Does anyone know anything about this couple?  -Helen Danahy, 81 Radcliffe Dr, Apt. 410, Halifax, NS, B3M 4P2. E-mail to  hdanahy@istar.ca.
 

Ruby M. Cusack is a genealogy buff. Send your queries to her at rmcusack@nbnet.nb.ca. (Please put Yesteryear Families in the subject line.) Include your name and mailing address for the benefit of those who do not have access to E-mail.  Queries should be 45 words or less.