Community and Family History

Community History

Anyone looking for information or photographs on just about any community in Kings Co., Nova Scotia will almost certainly find something of interest in our archives. We have books, newspaper articles, photographs, personal reminiscences etc. etc. all of which can be viewed in the Community and Family History area on the lower level of the museum in Kentville. One of our volunteers is digitizing the photo collection and some of these images can be viewed on the Photo Archives page.

Family History - Genealogy

For the genealogist or family history researcher, we have a wealth of information including:

Large collection of published works on various families and related subjects.
Approximately 900 file folders on individual families and many family binders.
Over 180 rolls of microfilm containing: births, marriages, deaths, census records, township books, and other statistics relating to Kings County and Nova Scotia.
Gravestone inscriptions for the 100 cemeteries in Kings County in four binders including a master index.
Many indexes and information assembled by members of the Family History Committee to help you find your family roots.

All of these records may be viewed at the museum. For those unable to visit Kentville, we have made the following information available on CD and ordering information can be found on the Book Shop page.

Indexes to these records can be viewed on-line by clicking any of the links below.

Tombstone Photographs

The Community and Family History Committee is now accepting requests to photograph tombstones anywhere in Kings County.

The cost will be $20.00 and will include a picture of the tombstone, plus pictures of any other side of the stone that has markings different from the front. It will also include a close up of any print or symbols on the stone.

Additional tombstone photographs (in the same cemetery, at the same time) will cost an additional $3.00 each per stone. Prints will be sent via email or regular mail.

To order photographs, please e-mail us providing as much detail as possible.

School Records Project

About five years ago the Community and Family History Committee of the Kings County Museum embarked on a project to photocopy all the school registers for Kings County Schools, up to the dates when the one-room schools amalgamated into the larger schools in the 1950s and 60s. Many of these records go back to the 1800s. Photocopying has been completed and a small group of volunteers is now entering over 200,000 individual records into a database. This monumental task is about two thirds of the way to completion.

These records and this database will be valuable in so many ways: For genealogists, they contain information for the missing years from the 1911 census until present. They show names of children; their parent's names; where they lived and their ages. Many people have already used these resources to find information for school/class reunions.

Records for the 1950s to the present are also available but there are no immediate plans to photocopy them and add them to the database.

A CD will be available for sale once the typing is all done but, in the meantime, the records are available in our archives and anyone looking for information should feel free to contact us and we will look up and send you the information.

More volunteers would enable us to finish the job sooner and if you would like to help, please contact the museum.

Monthly Meetings

The Genealogy and Family History Committee meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month (except July and August) at 7:30 pm on the Museum's lower level. For further information, contact Nelson Labor, committee chairman.

Please note that this committee will not be meeting during January, February and March, 2010.