Sharing our Links to the Past
by Wally and Frances Gray

The Publicover Family of Nova Scotia
By Wallace F. Gray

THE PUBLICOVER FAMILY OF NOVA SCOTIA (and probably of the world) begins with the immigration of a farmer, John Peter Bubickhoffer, from the Palatinate what is located in the present Southwest Germany. He came to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the stormy Atlantic in a vessel called the Sally. So violent were the storms that even the captain or master (John Robinson) died. Probably about 40 died on that three-month voyage.

Peter was not the only immigrant in our family who came to Halifax during 1791-92. The Langilles and Himmelmans, were also passengers in that fleet of ships. The dangerous voyages and the cruel treatment of some of those brave souls is documented in a news story on early Protestant settlers.

Of John Peter Bubickhoffer being the source of the Publicover families in Nova Scotia, Dr. Winthrop Bell told me in a letter to me dated May 22, 1959: "All Publicovers, at least in so far as they have come from Nova Scotia, go back to one Peter Bubickhoffer, who emigrated from the Palatinate and came to Nova Scotia in 1752 at the age of 34."

My Grandparents

My claim to the Publicovers comes through my grandmother Ada Mary Publicover who married my grandfather Joseph Albert Gray in 1884 in Blandford. Joseph was from Sambro, Nova Scotia. I knew these grandparents well as a youngster and even interviewed them when I was about 12, getting valuable genealogical information from them. Here is a photo of them with their Chevy around 1930 (when I was about 5 years old.)

Ada Mary Publicover and Joseph Albert Gray, my grandparents, taken around 1930.

(You can see a photo of this couple and their seven children by going to the Joseph Albert Gray page which has a linking line above this photo.) You can see my ancestral claim to this family at Wallace F. Gray Ancestor Chart

Spelling of the Surname

There are many variations to the spelling of the surname. The name was anglicized around 1764 when Peter's last children, Maria and John Peter were the first to be christened with the surname Publicover. I have made a collection of the various spellings of this name and present it here as an interesting and humorous sideline. There are 50, counting the present spelling.

Reasons for the surname variations

According to Winthrop Bell who wrote me this information in May 1959: "You must understand that the spelling of proper names among the immigrants of those days was not so standarized as it would be today. Many surnames appear in an almost bewildering variety of spellings, as those names were written by, for instance, [by] shipping clerks in Rotterdam, English rationing officials in Nova Scotia, land-grant commissions, etc. Many of the people could not write their own names (no disgrace for an agricultural worker at that period). The Publicover - or, properly: Bubickhoffer - - name may be found in several variants, but all clearly identifiable from instance to instance. In fact, the first stage of the transformation from Bubickhoffer toward Publicover, is presumably traceable to the slipping in of an "l" in a land allotment where it appears as "Bublickhoffer".

Bell says regarding the strange spelling of Puppinghowen: "An example of the strange forms in which names occur in those days may be found in the record of this marriage, where the groom's name appears as "Puppinghowen". There is not the slightest doubt, however, that it is the same man, since he and Sabina Catharina turn up later with the Bubickhoffer surname, and he is later found as one of George Himmelman's heirs."

54 Surname variations: Bittighofer, Biettighofer, Bittighofer, Bobikauffer, Bobikofer, Boekechoffer, Boerinhoffer, Boevechoffer, Boevichoffer, Boobeckoffer, Boobickoffer, Borbechoffer, Bouekoffer, Bowbekoffer, Bubbikofer, Bubbikoffer, Bubechoffer, Bubeckheffer, Bubeckhoffer, Bubeckhopfer, Bubeckoffer, Bubeckopfer, Bubekhoffer, Bubekoffer, Bubi Kauffer, Bubichoffer, Bubickhoffer, Bubickover, Bubicoffer, Bubighofer, Bubikaufer, Bubikauffer, Bubikhofer, Bubikofer, Bubikoffer, Bubikopfer, Bubikopher, Bublickhoffer, Bublikover, Bubuofieu, Buetikofer,  Bukikoff, Bukikoffer, Bulico, Buppikoffer, Obitgkofer, Optikofer,  Publicover, Publikoffer, Pupikofer, Puppikofer, Puppikofer-the-dweller, Puppinhowen, Ubtighofer.

If you want to see the sources of these variations, go to   Sources of Publicover Surnames.

Even the given name has a few variations such as Petter, Pieter and Petyer.

A valuable source on the Publicovers: Winthrop Bell's classic The "Foreign Protestants" and the Settlement of Nova Scotia is rich with information on the people that came to Canada at the same time as Peter did. The book as been described as follows: ". . . a most thorough investigation of a self-contained unit of eighteenth-century transatlantic emigration based on a surprising variety of authentic information; names of the migrants, their places of origin and occupations, the manner of their recruiting; conditions on shipboard, even to details of the rations dealt out; the conditions the migrants encountered in Halifax; and details of their permanent settlement. From this store of material, often found in scattered items in the Nova Scotia Archives and the Public Archives of Canada, Dr. Bell has traced the full story of the Lunenburg settlers of the 1750's. See Winthrop Bell for more information on this book. The book, long out of date, is continually referred to and is available in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City (Call number 971.63/F2b in the US/Canada Book Area.)

Web Sites Related to the Publicover Family

Photos of the Old Burial Ground at Petite Riviere  See also Album Listings of these photos. Includes nearby areas and listing of the tombstones.

Consolidated Index to Lunenburg County Probated Wills 1770-1990. (Courtesy of Chris Young.)

Winthrop Pickard Bell. His book is referred to above.

Index to Lunenburg County Census of 1838. (Chris Young)

History of Upper Blandford . A 1934 School Project. Includes Publicover names.

Blandford and Area Historical Society

Hometown Origin of   German Ancestors: Palatinate Area. (Chris Young)

Birds eye map of Lunenburg 1879 shows the buildings.(Chris Young)

Birds eye view map of 1890 shows considerable building in that area. (Chris Young)

Church Map (Chris Young)

Lunenburg's Founding Fathers. (See Bubikoffer) From June 1753-June 1755.

See also "Don Shankle's Downeast": http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~downeast

About Lunenburg

The following article which appeared in Lunen-Links (an e-mail list) is reproduced for your information. It was written by Cathy DiPietro, listowner Lunen-LinksYou may want to subscribe (free) to the site which posts information from those interested in research in the Lunenburg area, or you may wish to check out some of the links mentioned. It was dated February 18, 2000.

Howdy Lunie Researchers,

Just a "brief" message to remind old members and help new list members with their postings, research, etc.

Please try and provide as much info, even good guesses, on the person you're looking for - Name, birth year, marriage year, whatever dates plus any location info you have. This helps us help you and you'll get a lot more responses that way. Don't forget to check all the wonderful online resources listed below first so the thrill of discovery can be all yours <grin>

Rootsweb does not allow postings over 20KB in size. If you have something that big that would benefit all - please cut it into two or more smaller postings.

Rootsweb does not allow attachments of any kind. Contact me at vdpcom@warwick.net if you have something you'd like to share in this way - or - post it to the list that you'll privately email copies of the attachment to those interested (like photos, etc.).

Rootsweb does not allow enhanced html, rtf and other non-standard text postings. The reasoning is that not all mail readers are created equal. There are over 380 subscribers to Lunen-Links at present - some are on compuserve, aol, hotmail, webtv, etc. and anything but plain text can cause problems. Please change to plain text before posting to the list. Visit http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/listowners/html-off.htm for instructions if you need help changing your setting.

You can search five years of Lunen-Links archives at http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl. Put Lunen-Links in for the list name. On next screen, choose the year to search and type in the name you're looking for - try all the spellings as this search engine cannot do partial word searches. On the next screen, click on [full] to read the archived message you want.

There are many excellent sites offering resources for the Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia (sorry Virginia researchers, you're in the wrong place) researchers. Start at

Gail Facini Edwards' site - the official GenWeb page http://www.rootsweb.com/~canns/lunenburg/
Don Shankle (et al) Birth Marriage Death Master Index http://www.rootsweb.com/~canns/lunenburg/bmd_main.html
Don Shankle's page (new address) http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~downeast
Chris Young's pages including spelling varieties, will index, etc. http://geocities.datacellar.net/Heartland/Ranch/8785/
My pages with early wills abstracted http://geocities.datacellar.net/Heartland/Meadows/5699/

Many other excellent web pages, most linked from Gail's Lunenburg Links Page (also check the personal pages) - http://www.rootsweb.com/~canns/lunenburg/lburglinks.html

You might want to save this for future reference - or at the very least prepare a post-it with the archive instructions for your bathroom mirror <grin, kidding>

Any questions, problems or comments about the Lunen-Links mailing list - drop me a line vdpcom@warwick.net

Take Care, Cathy DiPietro listowner Lunen-Links and Zinck descendant (okay, plus Conrad, Young, Schnare, Berringer, Heckman, Bachman, Geldert, Rodenbach, Seaboyer, Keddy, Tanner, Knickle, Clattenburg, Dunbar, Deuthoff, Ernst, Bollivar, Hauptman, Herman, Schmidt, Rab, Rafuse, Weagle, Weist, Schaffner, Loeffler - well, you get the idea....)

(To subscribe to the list, send a message to LUNEN-LINKS-D-request@rootsweb.com that contains in the body of the message the command subscribe.)

©1998-2006 Wallace F. and Frances M. Gray. This web page may be freely linked. To contact us send to grayfox2@cox.net