New: British North America Legislative Database, 1758-1867

Hat tip to Blake Brown for exciting news from the Atlantic Canada Studies Conference of an initiative of the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship at the University of New Brunswick, The British North America Legislative Database, 1758-1867. 

Not only will it be an amazing help to have these resources in one place, but they are searchable by keyword and key phrase (pause for delighted gasps.)

The website suggests timber, land policy and dower--I can think of couple dozen more off the top of my head--and notes that this will be wonderful for comparative legal (and other) history.

The database is still incomplete, but there is already a lot there. Caveat that it appears to be also subject to some of the limitations of its underlying sources, eg. Early Canadiana Online.  But do check it out. (Note that it comes up easily on Google, but not so much through the main UNB or UNB libraries websites, so click on this link.)

But well done Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship and Elizabeth Mancke, and thanks again to Blake for tweeting this news and much else.

Here's a bit from the welcome page:

Welcome to the website for the British North America Legislative Database. This database includes characteristics of all the legislation passed by the pre-Confederation assemblies of eastern British North America: Nova Scotia (1758-1867); Cape Breton (1785-1820); Prince Edward Island (1768-1867); New Brunswick (1786-1867); Lower Canada (1792-1838); Upper Canada (1792-1840), the United Canadas (1841-1867); and Newfoundland (1832-1867).

This database is hosted by the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship, both located at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Funding for this project is made possible by Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Studies held by Elizabeth Mancke (2012-2019).

PLEASE NOTE: This site is under construction, and legislative acts are still being added. Acts currently available are:

Cape Breton (1785-1820) COMPLETE
Lower Canada (1792-1838) from 1792 to 1806
New Brunswick (1768-1867) COMPLETE
Newfoundland (1833 -1867) COMPLETE
Upper Canada (1792-1840) COMPLETE
United Canadas (1841-1867) from 1841 to 1856

The content labelled as "complete" is available for viewing in its entirety; however, in some cases, it has not yet had "concepts" tags added and/or been edited. Those processes are still underway. We thank you for your patience and encourage you to return often as new content is being loaded and edited every day.