Archive For The “Uncategorized” Category
Today we’ve added eight new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from St. John the Evangelist in Hopkinton. This update adds over 14,600 records and over 49,700 names to search.
Hopkinton’s Catholics initially were served by the priests of Milford. St. Mary’s in Milford is now part of the Diocese of Worcester. It is worth consulting 100 Years of Progress by James S. Sullivan for his explanation of the changing parish boundaries in the western end of the Archdiocese in the late 1800s–according to Sullivan, the Milford priests were initially responsible for Catholics of at least ten different towns. As the population grew, these towns gradually split off into individual parishes. In the early 1850s, the first Catholic church was built in Hopkinton, initially called St. Malachi’s. In 1878, the first Mass was celebrated in the building that would be come St. John the Evangelist Church.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making these parishes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Baptisms and Marriages, 1851-1866
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Baptisms and Marriages, 1866-1871
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Baptisms, 1870-1881
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Baptisms, 1881-1908
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Confirmations, 1867-1882
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) First Communions and Confirmations, 1870-1881
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Marriages, 1870-1881
St. John the Evangelist (Hopkinton) Marriages, 1881-1908
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added five new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from St. Stephen in Framingham. This update adds over 9,900 records and over 40,000 names to search.
St. Stephen was established as a parish in 1878. St. George in the Saxonville neighborhood of Framingham was the first Catholic church in the area. St. Bridget and St. Stephen (in South Framingham) branched off from St. George.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making these parishes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
St. Stephen (Framingham) Baptisms, 1877-1920
St. Stephen (Framingham) Baptisms, 1887-1901
St. Stephen (Framingham) Confirmations, 1888-1920
St. Stephen (Framingham) Marriages, 1877-1887
St. Stephen (Framingham) Marriages, 1887-1920
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 St. Michael in Lowell. This update adds over 12,900 records and over 46,400 names to search.
St. Michael’s parish began in 1883 when Lowell’s churches were mandated to become geographically-arranged parishes. It was initially served by the priests of St. Patrick’s before it became officially independent. This church was built in Lowell’s Centralville neighborhood, across the river from downtown Lowell.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help making these parishes available online.
The new volumes are listed below:
St. Michael (Lowell) Baptisms, 1884-1908
St. Michael (Lowell) Confirmations, 1884-1900
St. Michael (Lowell) Marriages, 1884-1908
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
We are very happy to have posted a new volume to The American Genealogist database. This update adds volume 86, which was released in the years 2012 through 2013, adds 380 pages and 6,500 searchable names. The image selected for this update was inspired by the oath of Richard More taken in 1660 accusing John Baylies wife of being a witch. See page 10 of this volume for the full quote.
The indexing for these records includes full names, Publication year (not the year of the record), and article titles and authors.
Founded in 1922 by Donald Lines Jacobus, The American Genealogist (TAG) has been published quarterly and represents an important body of scholarly research covering the breadth of the United States. TAG is edited by a quartet of NEHGS members: Editor and publisher, Nathaniel Lane Taylor, FASG; coeditors Roger D. Joslyn, FASG and Joseph C. Anderson II, FASG, who is also editor of The Maine Genealogist; and consulting editor, David L. Greene, FASG. These distinguished genealogists, along with dozens of highly-regarded contributors, uphold and advance the standards for genealogical scholarship so carefully articulated by Jacobus and the Jacobus “School.”
This update is made possible by the efforts of our volunteer David Anderson. If you are interested in getting involved in the database digitization and indexing process please contact Rachel Adams, Database Services Volunteer Coordinator via email at rachel.adams@nehgs.org.
The entire run of The American Genealogist is available at the NEHGS Boston research library, call number F104.N6 A6.
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we are releasing volumes 7, 8 and 9 (1853-1855) of the in-depth re-indexing of all the genealogical records in the database Vital Records from The NEHGS Register. This update includes 41,000 records and 83,000 searchable names, and is about eight times the number of records previously indexed for these volumes.
This ongoing project will unlock the value of all the information captured in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register since the first publication in 1847. We are reviewing every published article add extracting a broad set of records for those articles that are genealogical in nature. So, in addition to birth, marriage, and death records there are now records of type; residence, immigration, military records, church dismissals, and more. The indexing we create is at the same level we have used for the Archdiocese of Boston and the Mayflower Silver Books. It includes spouses, parents, and locations.
Users of American AncesTREES will also benefit by being able to get hints from the newly indexed volumes in their family trees.
We will release each re-indexed volume of the register as it is completed. If you would like to become part of the team working on this rewarding project to revamp the index to the NEHGS Register, please contact Rachel Adams, Database Services Volunteer Coordinator via email at rachel.adams@nehgs.org. This update is made possible by the efforts of our volunteers: Diane Arbuckle, Nancy Borman, Carol Botteron, Tom Clements, Pat Dalpiaz, Fran Danico, Elizabeth Handler, Pat Harney, Jan Lundquist, Julie Nathanson, Liz Odell, Margaret Parker, Linda Peterson, Karen Ristics, Ray Ristics, Kay Sencabaugh, Renda Smith, Gale Stevenson, Rich Turnblom, Susan Van Allen, Charlie Watson, Jaimie Williams-Peterson, Rich Wood, Erica Yee.
Published quarterly since 1847, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register is the flagship journal of American genealogy and the oldest journal in the field. The Register has featured articles on a wide variety of topics since its inception, including vital records, church records, tax records, land and probate records, cemetery transcriptions, obituaries, and historical essays. Authoritative compiled genealogies have been the centerpiece of the Register for more than 150 years. Thousands of New England families have been treated in the pages of the journal and many more are referenced in incidental ways throughout. These articles may range from short pieces correcting errors in print or solving unusual problems to larger treatments that reveal family origins or present multiple generations of a family. The indexing for these records includes full names, Publication year (not the year of the record), and article titles and authors.
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 for St. Vincent de Paul of South Boston. This update adds over 32,000 records and 120,000 names to search.
Saint Vincent de Paul of South Boston is at the corner of E and Third Street, and was just one block from the water when it was built. The church was dedicated on the Festival of St. Vincent de Paul on July 19, 1874 in a ceremony performed by Bishop Williams.
The new volumes are:
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Baptisms, 1862-1871
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Baptisms, 1872-1882
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Baptisms, 1898-1909
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Baptisms and Marriages, 1862-1897
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Baptisms and Marriages, 1872-1885
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Confirmations, 1870-1920
- St. Vincent de Paul (South Boston) Marriages, 1880-1909
We would be delighted to have new volunteers to help us with the Catholic Records project. If you have a few available hours a week and are interested in learning more about this exciting project, please contact Rachel Adams, Database Services Volunteer Coordinator via email at rachel.adams@nehgs.org.
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1620-1850 is one of our most popular databases. In the past three months it has consistently been one of our top 10 most-accessed databases; in July it was 5th on the list, in August it was 9th, and in September it was 8th. I’m sure it will stay on the list for October!
This database builds on the work of transcribers from the early 1900s– at that time original town records that were often in varying states of disrepair due to problems such as age. In 1902, NEHGS used the bequest of a benefactor, Robert Henry Eddy, to set up the Eddy Town-Record Fund. Read Sam Sturgis’ Vita Brevis post, “Who was Robert Henry Eddy and Why Should You Care?” to learn more about this project. In summary, the Eddy fund and the Massachusetts “Vital Records Act” provided resources to transcribe and preserve many of the early vital records of Massachusetts that are now presented in this database.
This database offers the vital records of many (but not all) towns in Massachusetts. The volumes that comprise this database come from a variety of different sources including vital records published by NEHGS (thanks to the Eddy Fund), vital records published by other individuals or organizations (such as Franklin P. Rice, the Essex Institute, or the General Society of Mayflower Descendants), and manuscripts from the NEHGS collection.
Since each volume in this database comes from a different source, we have created a new resource to help researchers understand exactly what they are looking at and trying to cite. We’re offering a new “Source Citation PDF” that lists the volumes in this database with a citation in Chicago style to the physical source from which they come. Each of these physical sources is available in the NEHGS Research Library.
This PDF is now available in the Database Description, which you can find on the Database-specific search page (scroll down), and on any image, record display, or transcript page (again, scroll down underneath the image).
We’re always trying to use the Database Description to provide context for researchers, so that they understand the links between digital words on a screen and the physical source that they come from. This is another tool towards this goal!
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis and Linda Weaver for their work on this project.
Please note: This database is available to all NEHGS members. Membership options.
Today we’re featuring a recent online webinar that occurred–What’s New at AmericanAncestors.org. This webinar is the first in a new series that will highlight new resources for researchers on our site. Each webinar will focus on additions from the past three months.
Last week, I presented this webinar live. We record each of our webinars so that anyone can listen to them at their convenience after the fact. “What’s New at AmericanAncestors.org” is meant to help you stay up to date with all of our new digital resources. You will hear about new databases, search features, and resources only available at AmericanAncestors.org, from both our databases and our digital collections. The database section of this presentation summarizes and expands upon information presented in this blog, Database News. The digital collections portion may be new to Database News subscribers. If you’d like to learn more about the distinction between Databases and our Digital Collections, be sure to watch the webinar!
To access this webinar, choose “Webinars, Lectures, and How-to Videos” under the “Learn” menu on our homepage. You will need to log in as a Guest Member; access to our archived webinars is free. Webinars are listed in chronological order, starting with the most recent, so “What’s New at AmericanAncestors.org” should be near the top–it aired on October 10, 2019.
This webinar’s purpose is really to showcase new resources for researchers; it’s not a full explanation of how to use our site. In 2017, my colleague Don LeClair presented a webinar that dives into how to search our databases. It was called “Searching Databases on AmericanAncestors.org”. You can find it by scrolling down in the list of webinars to December 2017.
To register for the next installment of “What’s New at AmericanAncestors.org”, (happening in January 2020) visit Online Events (under the Events tab). All webinars are free and open to anyone.
Today we’ve updated Early New England Families, 1641-1700, adding three new sketches.
The new sketches include:
Alexander Adams (m. 1644)
Joan (Kember) Coffin (m. 1609)
Tristram Coffin (m. 1627)
Joan (Kember) Coffin was Tristram Coffin’s mother. Alexander Adams was one of her sons-in-law, married to her daughter Mary. Alexander’s life in New England was focused around Boston. The Coffins came from Brixton in Devon County, England, and lived in Salisbury, Haverhill, Newbury, and Nantucket upon arrival in New England.
Early New England Families, 1641-1700 is written by Alicia Crane Williams. This study project highlights heads of families mentioned in Torrey’s New England Marriages to 1700. To learn more about this project, you may be interested one of Alicia Crane Williams’ recent Vita Brevis posts on the subject.
We’d like to thank Sam Sturgis for his help adding these sketches to our database.
Please note: These databases are available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.
Today we’ve added four new volumes to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 from Immaculate Conception in Revere. This update adds over 10,200 records and over 22,100 names to search.
Revere was initially part of the parish of St. Rose of Lima in Chelsea, and then became a mission of Immaculate Conception in Everett. In 1888, work began on a church of their own for Revere’s Catholics.
The new volumes are listed below:
Immaculate Conception (Revere) Baptisms, 1889-1908
Immaculate Conception (Revere) Confirmations, 1889-1920
Immaculate Conception (Revere) First Communions, 1889-1913
Immaculate Conception (Revere) Marriages, First Communions, and Confirmations, 1889-1909
Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.