Bible Records

The following is a listing of the family Bible records held by the Argyle Township Court House Archives.

It should be noted by researchers that some of these records are flawed. In some cases the title page giving the edition of the Bible, the publisher, place of publication and most importantly, the year of publication, is missing. This has happened for a variety of reasons. In some cases the copies were made some time ago by people who were unaware of the importance of the title pages, or other pages giving the year of publication, in authenticating the reliability of the family record. In other cases the title and publication pages have been missing from the Bible, and in still other cases no date of publication was given in the Bible. Whenever possible we have attempted to obtain copies of the title pages.

Our archives holds some original Bibles as well. The archives’ holdings in relation to each item is given in the description. In all cases, our copies, of family Bible records have been certified by a Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. When we own the original Bible, we hold a true certified copy of the record from the Bible as well.

In our description of each record we have, as much as possible, attempted to state who was the original owner of the Bible. In many cases families have transcribed the records of an earlier generation into their own family Bibles before commencing their own family record. Hence the first names which appear in any given family Bible do not necessarily indicate that those people first owned the Bible. We have attempted to determine the original owners of the Bibles from information provided by the current owners and from the publication dates of the Bibles.

The call numbers and arrangement within this finding aid are as follows:

• “MG1″ – The designation for the manuscript group, “Vital Statistics.”
• “Ser. E” – The designation for all family Bibles and family Bible records.
• The file level simply consists of the surname of the family.
• The item level simply indicates which Bible it is. That is, if the archives has 10 Hamilton family Bibles, or family Bible records, they will be numbered in the order in which they were received. Hence their call numbers would be, MG1 Ser. E Hamilton #1, MG1 Ser. E Hamilton #2, MG1 Ser. E Hamilton #3, etc.

This is the manner in which the descriptions of the records have been arranged in this finding aid. They are arranged alphabetically by surname, and then chronologically by item number. New family Bible records are added as they are received.