Author Archive
Today we’ve added four new volumes to Massachusetts: (Image-Only) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 and updated three volumes from Holy Trinity in Boston. This update adds over 1,100 new pages to browse.
Holy Trinity was the heart of the German Catholic community in Boston. The parish was established in 1836; the first Mass in their church building was said in 1844. Read more about the history of the parish in our late volunteer Michael Hager’s American Ancestors magazine article. You can learn more about the Monatsbote, their parish newsletter in Thomas Lester’s article in the Pilot.
We’d like to thank volunteers Ross Weaver, Bill Wolfendale and Kim Bonner for their help making this update possible.
If you need help navigating this collection, please consult our how-to video. The new volumes are listed below:
Holy Trinity (Boston) Baptisms, 1902-1908
Holy Trinity (Boston) Baptisms, 1908-1920
Holy Trinity (Boston) Burials, 1907-1920
Holy Trinity (Boston) Marriages, 1914-1920
The following volumes have been updated. Previously they were truncated to only display records from before January 1, 1901. Now they are presented on our site in their complete form:
Holy Trinity (Boston) Baptisms 1894-1902
Holy Trinity (Boston) Deaths 1878-1907
Holy Trinity (Boston) Marriages 1893-1914
Please note: This database is available to all NEHGS members. Learn more about becoming a NEHGS guest member (free).
Today we’ve added six new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from the St. Ann and St. Catherine of Genoa, both in Somerville. This update adds over 11,800 records and over 39,800 names to search from St Ann’s and over 6,500 records and over 29,800 names from St. Catherine of Genoa.
St. Ann was established in Somerville’s Winter Hill neighborhood in 1881. St. Catherine of Genoa was established in Spring Hill in 1891. Both parishes split off from St. Joseph in Union Square, the first Catholic church in Somerville.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making these parishes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
St. Ann (Somerville) Baptisms, 1881-1897
St. Ann (Somerville) Baptisms, 1898-1909
St. Ann (Somerville) First Communions and Confirmations, 1883-1920
St. Ann (Somerville) Marriages, 1891-1910
St. Catherine of Genoa (Somerville) Baptisms, 1892-1909
St. Catherine of Genoa (Somerville) Marriages, 1892-1920
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added four new volumes to Massachusetts: (Image-Only) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from St. Anthony of Padua in Cambridge. This update adds over 1,600 new pages to browse.
St. Anthony of Padua was established in 1902, serving the Portuguese immigrants of East Cambridge. The history of the church specifies the congregants came from mainland Portugal, the Azores, and Madeira. Boston College’s Global Boston project provides a helpful overview of Portuguese immigration to the Boston area including East Cambridge.
We’d like to thank volunteers Ross Weaver, Angela Napolitano, Eileen McCarthy and Kim Bonner for their help making this update possible.
If you need help navigating this collection, please consult our how-to video. The new volumes are listed below:
St. Anthony of Padua (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1902-1913
St. Anthony of Padua (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1913-1918
St. Anthony of Padua (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1918-1920
St. Anthony of Padua (Cambridge) Marriages, 1902-1920
Please note: This database is available to all NEHGS members. Learn more about becoming a NEHGS guest member (free).
Today we’re announcing two new sketches in Western Massachusetts Families in 1790 featuring Thomas Eldridge of Hancock and Thomas Lawrence of Dalton.
Helen Ullmann’s lastest book has just come out: Western Massachusetts Families in 1790, Volume 4 . Learn more about the included sketches!
This study project focuses on individuals enumerated in the 1790 census in historic Berkshire and Hampshire counties, also including modern Franklin and Hampden counties. Sketches for this project are submitted to editor Helen Schatvet Ullmann, CG, FASG by NEHGS members and other interested researchers. If you are interested in submitting a sketch for Volume 5, please review our project home page.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making this update possible.
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added six new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from the St. Mary of the Annunciation in Cambridge. This update adds over 42,000 records and over 157,500 names to search.
In One Hundred Years of Progress (1895), James S. Sullivan describes the parish, “This is one of the most influential and prosperous parishes in the Archdiocese and considering that it was organized no further back than 1866…its growth is little short of the marvelous.” When this parish was established, it was in the Cambridgeport neighborhood. It is not located within the modern bounds of Cambridgeport. Wikipedia explains the shifting boundaries of this neighborhood. The church was established on the corner of Harvard and Norfolk Streets, in the modern neighborhood of the Port, in between Central and Inman Squares.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making these volumes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
St. Mary of the Annunciation (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1867-1878
St. Mary of the Annunciation (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1878-1896
St. Mary of the Annunciation (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1897-1910
St. Mary of the Annunciation (Cambridge) Confirmations, 1868-1884
St. Mary of the Annunciation (Cambridge) Confirmations, 1885-1902
St. Mary of the Annunciation (Cambridge) Marriages, 1867-1902
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added seven new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from St. Joseph in Waltham. This update adds over 6,100 records and over 19,800 names to search.
In 1894 the French Canadian congregation of Waltham first gained a pastor. It took a few years to purchase a church building, but eventually St. Joseph’s was established on Central St. in the former Christ Church Episcopal building.
We’d like to thank volunteers Debbie Lansing, David Anderson, Bruce McKeeman, Loretta Brown-Aldrich, Kathy Oberley, Erin Canzano, Carol Farrington and Stacey-Rae McCue for their help making these volumes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
St. Joseph (Waltham) Baptisms, 1894-1916
St. Joseph (Waltham) Confirmations, 1896-1920
St. Joseph (Waltham) Deaths, 1895-1920
St. Joseph (Waltham) First Communions and Confirmations, 1895-1920
St. Joseph (Waltham) First Communions, 1895-1920
St. Joseph (Waltham) Marriages and Deaths, 1895-1907
St. Joseph (Waltham) Marriages, 1895-1920
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added six new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from the Patronage of St. Joseph in Somerville. This update adds over 55,208 records and over 160,785 names to search.
The Patronage of St. Joseph was the original Catholic parish in Somerville, off of which St. Ann and St. Catherine of Genoa would later split. Prior to the establishment of this church in Union Square, Somerville’s Catholics often attended Mass at St. Mary (Charlestown) or St. Peter (Cambridge).
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making these parishes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
Patronage of St. Joseph (Somerville) Baptisms, 1869-1895
Patronage of St. Joseph (Somerville) Baptisms, 1896-1905
Patronage of St. Joseph (Somerville) Confirmations, 1873-1920
Patronage of St. Joseph (Somerville) First Communions, 1878-1895
Patronage of St. Joseph (Somerville) First Communions, 1896-1917
Patronage of St. Joseph (Somerville) Marriages, 1869-1920
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Our new database Boston, MA: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Immigration Records, 1904-1929 presents the earliest records of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in Boston, thanks to our partnership with the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center at New England Historic Genealogical Society (JHC). This database will contain 12 folders from the HIAS collection held by the JHC. Six folders are available now for search as part of our initial launch of the database. The other six folders will become available later in 2020. These folders are from Box 211; for a complete listing of boxes within the collection, see the finding aid.
This new database contains over 6,000 records and names, with more to come. Records include passenger lists, ship arrivals, correspondence, and lists of immigrants who were detained and deported. The contents of each volume vary greatly. Folders 2 and 9 are image-only. Use the blue arrows (on the image pages) to browse these volumes.
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was founded in New York City in the 1880s by the Russian Jewish community of New York in response to the influx of Russian Jewish immigrants fleeing the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Boston office of HIAS was chartered in 1904. HIAS in Boston operated autonomously from the national office in New York, even after their merger in 1916. HIAS ensured that Jewish immigrants had access to holiday and religious services and kosher food; provided shelter and social services; and assisted immigrants with finding employment and schools, often on short notice.
Starting in 1930, HIAS began to keep case files on the individuals whom they helped. The Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center is digitizing these files and making them available in Digital Collections in the Harris Poorvu Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (Boston) Digital Archives.
Immigrants in this database simply traveled through Boston. While Boston or another town in Massachusetts were the final destinations of many, immigrants to locations throughout the United States and Canada are represented in this database. Far-flung or popular locations include New York (city and state); St. Louis, Missouri; Wisconsin; Winnipeg, Ontario; North Carolina; Maryland; California and more.
The creation of this database was funded by the family of Harris Poorvu, former president and treasurer of HIAS Boston. We’d like to thank volunteers Bill Wolfendale, Eileen McCarthy, Ria Bhandarkar , Max Agigian, and David Anderson for their help scanning and indexing these folders.
Please note: This database is available to all NEHGS members. Learn more about becoming a NEHGS guest member (free).
Today we’re announcing three new sketches in Western Massachusetts Families in 1790 featuring Joseph Fairfield from Pittsfield, Joseph Badger from Blandford, and Jonathan Keet from Leverett.
This study project focuses on individuals enumerated in the 1790 census in historic Berkshire and Hampshire counties, also including modern Franklin and Hampden counties. Sketches for this project are submitted to editor Helen Schatvet Ullmann, CG, FASG by NEHGS members and other interested researchers. If you are interested in submitting a sketch for Volume 5, please review our project home page.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making this update possible.
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added three new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from Our Lady of Pity in Cambridge. This update adds over 5,000 records and over 19,800 names to search.
Also known as Notre Dame de Pitie, Our Lady of Pity was the French parish in North Cambridge, established in 1892. Prior to the establishment of this parish, French-Canadians living in Cambridge may have attended Mass at other churches in Cambridge or traveled all the way to Our Lady of Victories in Boston.
We’d like to thank Debbie Lansing, Bob Anderson, Julie Roffo, Shaune-Marie Berg, Kathy Oberley and Becki Clarke for their help making this parish available on our site.
The new volumes are listed below:
Our Lady of Pity (Cambridge) Baptisms, 1892-1908
Our Lady of Pity (Cambridge) Confirmations, 1899-1919
Our Lady of Pity (Cambridge) Marriages, 1892-1908
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.