Historians disagree about registry documents

March 20, 2009

MIRAMICHI - A plan by the province to destroy old land registry documents is getting mixed reviews from local historians.

Miramichi Historical Society president Manford Wasson said as long as the records are scanned, there is no need to keep them because they just take up space.

"Probably could be used for better things."

But Jack Ullock disagrees and thinks the documents should be saved.

"The way I look at it, these records, some of them aren't that old, but if they hadn't of kept the records of the early days we wouldn't have any today."

Because they have digitized their land registry documents, the province will start to destroy the physical copies as early as next month, once they move the information to an electronic database.

The province will move registry books from 1784 to 1930 to the archives for public viewing and will destroy records from 1931 on.

Wasson said he has never gone through the old registries and researchers would probably be the only ones interested in them.

"I can't see an awful lot of people going looking for those things."

Ullock said the historical society saved other historical documents, like old school records and documents from the legislature, which they keep at Rankin House.

"We should make every effort to obtain hard copies of the records they are going to destroy." Any records for Northumberland County that are going to be destroyed should be donated to the historical society and stored at Rankin House, he said.

"There's too much of these old records being destroyed."

Northumberland County's records are scheduled to be destroyed as of April, along with Madawaska, Victoria, Carleton, Charlotte, Kings, Restigouche, Kent and Gloucester counties.

Saint John, Sunbury, Queens and York counties have theirs until July, Westmorland and Albert the last to destroy their records in December.

Ullock is interested in saving the old land registries and said he sometimes looks through the records they have at Rankin House.

"Just to see what I can find."

Wasson said scanning documents into a computer database is the way to go, otherwise they just pile up and take up space.

"I think the people that are doing it know more about it than I do."

Provincial registry coordinator Debby Frost was involved in the archiving and said the province isn't going to destroy the originals of any documents.

"The law has changed to make it so that the electronic version is the original."

The documents are backed up on microfilm, a server, an external hard drive and multiple DVDs with a high level of quality control, she said.

"To me this is a step forward, not a step behind."

Frost said there were about 1,200 books stored at the Service New Brunswick location in Miramichi before the province moved them.

"It was a fair amount of books and a fair amount of space."

Since 2001 they have been scanning documents when people bring them in and returning them without keeping the paper on site, she said.

Frost also said having the documents in an electronic form means people who do research, like lawyers, can look at them online instead of getting a physical copy.

"It's benefit after benefit after benefit."