Acadian genealogy is a parallel system to Quebec genealogy. The two French-speaking populations of early Canada — Quebec on the St. Lawrence, Acadia in the Maritimes — were separated by geography, by their relationship to the British Crown after 1713, and by the catastrophic 1755 Deportation that scattered Acadian families from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and back again. Researching Acadian and Maritime Canadian lineage requires different archives and a different methodology.
If your ancestors lived in present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador, this is your guide. For the Quebec equivalent, see Quebec genealogy resources — PRDH, Drouin, BMS2000, Tanguay.
Two distinct populations, often confused
Acadians and Quebecois are both French-Canadian, but they're not the same population. The distinctions matter because they lead to different archives.
- Acadians settled in present-day Nova Scotia from the 1630s, with later expansion into New Brunswick and PEI. They were French but governed by the British after 1713 (Treaty of Utrecht). Distinct French dialect. Distinct family-name pool: Arsenault, Cormier, Boudreau, Doiron, LeBlanc, Maillet, Mazerolle, Melanson, Robichaud, Thibodeau, Vautour.
- Quebecois settled the St. Lawrence valley from 1608 onward, governed by France until 1763, then by Britain. Modern Quebec French. Different surname pool, though overlap exists.
- Cape Breton Highland Scots arrived in Nova Scotia from the late 1700s, fleeing the Highland Clearances. Largely Presbyterian and Catholic. Surnames: MacDonald, MacLeod, MacKenzie, MacIntyre, Gillis.
- Loyalists came north from the American colonies after 1783. Mostly English-speaking Protestants. Concentrated in Saint John and the western New Brunswick valley.
- Irish Famine migrants arrived in the Maritimes from the 1840s, with Saint John and Halifax as primary entry points. Both Catholic and Protestant.
The first task in Maritime genealogy research is identifying which population your ancestor belonged to. The surname plus the parish or region usually gives this away.
The 1755 Deportation and its documentary consequences
In 1755 the British colonial government forcibly removed roughly 12,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia. They were dispersed to the American colonies (where many were turned away), to England (where some were held as prisoners), to France (where they were ill-fitting after generations away), and to Louisiana (where they became the ancestors of present-day Cajuns).
The Deportation destroyed the Acadian record base in three ways:
- Many parish registers from the 1710s–1750s were burned or lost in the chaos.
- Families were broken up; siblings ended up in different countries.
- The Acadians who returned after 1764 (when the British allowed it) often returned to different villages than they'd come from, creating discontinuities in the documentary record.
What survives is partial but workable. Stephen White's Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes, published in 1999, reconstructs Acadian genealogy from 1636 to 1755 using every surviving record fragment. It's the Tanguay-equivalent for Acadian research and the starting point for anyone tracing an Acadian line.
Where to look, by province
Nova Scotia
The Nova Scotia Archives holds:
- Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths from 1864 onward
- Earlier Catholic parish registers (Acadian, 1714–1860s) on microfilm
- Anglican parish registers from 1749 (founding of Halifax) onward
- Presbyterian and Baptist parish registers from various 18th–19th century starts
For certified copies of post-1864 civil records, request through Vital Statistics Nova Scotia. Fees: $35 CAD for a long-form certificate, 6–8 weeks turnaround.
For pre-1864 parish records, the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and the Centre acadien at Université Sainte-Anne are the primary repositories. Many Acadian records were microfilmed by the LDS Church and are searchable on FamilySearch.
New Brunswick
The Provincial Archives of New Brunswick holds:
- Civil registration from 1888 onward
- Earlier parish registers (Catholic Acadian, Catholic Irish, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian) on microfilm and increasingly digitised
- The largest single archive of Acadian post-Deportation records
For Acadian researchers specifically, the Centre d'études acadiennes Anselme-Chiasson at the Université de Moncton holds the largest single collection of Acadian genealogical material. Their reading room is open to researchers; remote-research queries are accepted for a fee.
Vital statistics certificates: Service New Brunswick charges $30 CAD for a long-form certificate, 4–6 weeks turnaround.
Prince Edward Island
PEI is smaller — population about 170,000 — and its archives are correspondingly smaller but better-curated.
The Prince Edward Island Public Archives and Records Office holds civil registration from 1906 (later than other provinces because PEI didn't centralise earlier). For pre-1906 ancestry, Catholic parish registers held by the Diocese of Charlottetown (founded 1829) are the primary source.
PEI's role in Acadian history was significant: many Acadians fled to PEI (then Île Saint-Jean) before the 1755 Deportation, and PEI was the launching point for some of the post-1764 returns to the Maritimes. The La Société d'histoire de la mer rouge maintains the most thorough Acadian-PEI database.
The recent IRCC.com news item Prince Edward Island Archives logs four years worth of document requests in four months describes the post-December 2025 surge — PEI Archives received as many requests in early 2026 as in the four preceding years combined. Plan for delays.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland's situation is distinctive. The colony didn't join Canada until 1949. People born in Newfoundland before that date were British subjects, not Canadian citizens — but the 1949 union retroactively conferred Canadian citizenship on most of them.