This index began as John's attempt to index Birth Marriage and Death columns found in Norfolk County newspapers -- via which it now covers the period 1870 to 1920 and beyond.

B-M-D Etc. grew over the years to include data from accompanying newspaper articles, photos and videos of local cemetery stones, data from church registers, vital stats, cemetery caretakers' logs, voters lists, censuses, etc. Here is a list of primary source documents, and details about those sources as well as secondary sources.

Newspaper-sourced entries end with a code in [square brackets] indicating the entry's source: a newspaper identification code and its date of issue. The source code format: newspaper ID, then YYYY MM DD of issue. So entries from the 25 Jan 1907 issue of the Simcoe Reformer end with [SR19070125]. Many codes end with px indicating the issue's page number.

Only cemetery stones, a few obituaries, and articles of particular interest  are fully transcribed. Most  entries indexed herein are incomplete summaries. Information typically not transcribed includes the name of officiating clergy, cause of death, the birth order of children, and biographical comments. Other information is truncated.
 
Difficult to transcribe text appears in [square brackets], as do [transcriber's or compiler's comments, which appear in this color to set them a part].

If the source document said "in his 64th year" his age appears herein as 63. If the source document said "aged 64 years" his age appears here as 64. Some newspapers did not specify the year that a birth, marriage or death occurred. Such entries were assumed to be for the current year. (A 21 Dec event reported in a February issue was assumed to have occurred two months before.)  Such years appear in [square brackets].

Source data is presented "as is" -- usually without comment. For example, the 23 Mar 1906 Simcoe Reformer reported births on both Friday the 9th and Saturday the 9th. Both were recorded herein as published without comment or "correction." Researchers are urged to verify all data found here against the source documents and other historical records.

Tips: 
-- Extremely difficult-to-transcribe entries were transcribed as best we could and appear on this unreadable list. 
-- A few words about Jackson descendants. 
-- Many events took place in hamlets and villages in Norfolk County. If the community name is new to you, check out our Place Names list, under About Norfolk.

When possible, married women were indexed by both their maiden and married surnames. But children usually appear only under the father's surname. So if Miss Jones married Mr. Smith, their marriage is indexed under both Jones and Smith, but their children's birth announcements and the bride's death notice usually appear only under Smith.

The constantly evolving nature of this database includes updating entries to fix typographical errors and/or reflect data from other sources as errors/differences are discovered. We urge  you to re-check older entries from time to time for the latest version.

The Simcoe Reformer was originally called Norfolk Reformer, and for a brief while circa 1895 the two banners appeared interchangeably. Both names refer to the same newspaper. Our bracketed source code initials are from each issue's front page banner. During the Depression the same newspaper was occasionally bannered the Norfolk Observer. Prior to 30 Apr 1903 the Simcoe Reformer was published on Thursdays. Starting 8 May 1903 it was published on Fridays. Later it grew to twice weekly, three issues weekly, then five days a week.

Except those specifically credited to others, all transcriptions were made by web master John Cardiff.