Acadian place names format

Question

I am having trouble with standard Acadian place names, I am trying to stay constant and consistent. Places like St Mary’s Bay!?! It’s a bay, so when someone lived there what should we call it. Modern day it’s Clare, Digby, NS, CN but the standard format doesn’t accept this on my family tree program.

Any help with place names will be appreciated.

Answer 1

Kathy, for early place names (pre-1764), you can use the Acadian Project guidelines found on the project page.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Acadians

Each part of Acadia is listed with proper format for each time period (depending on who had ownership of the area.

On Wikitree we also write out names, i.e., Colony of Nova Scotia or for post 1867, Canada.

Answer 2

I wasn’t sure either, even though I’m from the Maritimes. I’ve always referred to the location as Baie Sainte-Marie or St. Mary’s Bay. So I wrote to the municipality of Clare and this is what they answered. « The municipality of Clare is a grouping of about thirty villages and the official name of the municipality. Baie Sainte-Marie is an informal name for the region derived from its proximity to the body of water bearing the same name.».  I would suggest using, as much as possible, the name of the village if available, or Clare if not available. But if all the official records of a person say Baie Sainte-Marie or St. Mary’s Bay, I wouldn’t hesitate using that, and always add Colony of Nova Scotia before 1867 (without Canada), as mentioned by Cindy Cooper in her post.