Archive For The “Uncategorized” Category

Alicia Crane William’s study project, Early New England Families, 1641-1700 focuses on immigrants to New England , using Torrey’s New England Marriages as a guide.

Today we’re announcing two new sketches and one revised sketch:

Henry Lamprey (m.1641) Henry came from England to Boston and died in Hampton, New Hampshire as an old man.

Daniel Fisher (m. 1645, 1651) Daniel also came from England and settled in Dedham.  He was the town surveyor who helped determine the limits of the town at the time.

Joseph Phippen (m.1640) (revised) Joseph Phippen came from England and lived in Massachusetts coastal towns including Hingham, Boston, Falmouth, and Salem.

Click here to download a complete pdf list of all Early New England Families sketches with links to each sketch.

Click here to visit our bookstore to purchase a print compilation of the first 50 sketches in the series.

Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.

 

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We’ve added 14 new volumes to Massachusetts: (Image-Only) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900 from St. Stephen’s parish in Boston.  St. Stephen’s is located in Boston’s North End.  The church was originally founded as a free church for those who could not pay to belong to another parish.  At its founding, it was called St. John the Baptist.  As the parish grew, they expanded to a new church building, formerly known as New North Church, designed by Charles Bulfinch.  When they expanded to this new building, the parish became known as St. Stephen.  This update consists of the following volumes:

St. Stephen (Boston) Index to Baptisms and Marriages, 1842-1887

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms and Marriages, 1842-1845

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1846-1853

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1854-1862

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1862-1870

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1870-1877

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1877-1882

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1883-1889

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1889-1900

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1900 (part 1)

St. Stephen (Boston) Baptisms, 1900 (part 2)

St. Stephen (Boston) Confirmations and First Communions, 1875-1900

St. Stephen (Boston) Marriages, 1846-1872

St. Stephen (Boston) Marriages, 1872-1900  

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We’ve added the parish of St. James the Greater in Boston to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, 1789-1900.  This parish was established in 1854, located in what is now Boston’s Chinatown.  In 1854, the neighborhood was largely of Irish descent.  The original church on the corner of Albany and Harvard streets was demolished when the land was sold to a railroad company.  The new church was built on Harrison Street and still serves the Catholics of Boston today.  An enormous thank you is due to all of our volunteers who helped make this large parish now available.

This update consists of the twelve following volumes:

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms, 1854-1864

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms, 1865-1874

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms, 1874-1875

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms, 1875-1879

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms, 1879-1883

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms,1883-1888

St. James the Greater (Boston) Baptisms, 1888-1900

St. James the Greater (Boston) Confirmations, 1858-1900

St. James the Greater (Boston) Marriages, 1855-1873

St. James the Greater (Boston) Marriages, 1874-1884

St. James the Greater (Boston) Marriages, 1884-1894

St. James the Greater (Boston) Marriages, 1895-1900

Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.

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We’re announcing a new database, Suffolk County, MA: Probate File Papers.  This database was created from digital images and index contributed to NEHGS by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives. It contains the records of 21,387 Suffolk County probate cases filed between 1630 and 1800. The probate cases include wills, guardianships, administrations, and various other types of probate records. The cases range in length from one to over 350 pages, with a total of over 191,600 individual file papers.

The complete Suffolk County File Papers collection will eventually cover cases 1-94,757, which includes years up to 1893. The cases are indexed chronologically, which allows us to present them in sections while digital photography is taking place. The digital photography is expected to continue through 2020. We will continue to add additional cases as they become available.

If you have questions on how to search this database, or about our collaboration with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives, please watch our video, How to Search Massachusetts Probate File Papers.

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We have added a new volume to the searchable database of authenticated Mayflower Pilgrim genealogies, Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880:

• Hopkins, Stephen (Vol. 6)

This database is being constructed from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD) very well-known series of books Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620 which document the first generation of descendants of the Pilgrims. Through our partnership with GSMD, American Ancestors is delivering this database with a full index of the fifth-generation descendants, and their children, coupled with the page images for those people.

Stephen Hopkins served as a minister’s clerk on Venture, which was marooned on Bermuda in 1609 during a hurricane. He fomented a mutiny amongst the 150 survivors, but was granted a pardon due to his penitence and alleged ruin to wife and family. Hopkins sailed on Mayflower with his pregnant second wife Elizabeth Fisher, three children, and servants Edward Doty and Edward Lester. During the voyage, Elizabeth delivered a son who was named Oceanus. The whole family survived the first winter, and Stephen and Elizabeth lived in Plymouth for 20 years.

This database index includes birth, baptism, marriage, death, and deed records for these individuals, and where available, the names of parents and spouses.
This update is made possible by the invaluable efforts of our team of volunteers, including; Diane Arbuckle, Jeanne Brown, Julie Nathanson, Margaret Parker, Marie Wells, and David Anderson. We appreciate the work of all our volunteers. If you would like to join the team please contact Bianca Renzoni, Database Services Volunteer Coordinator bianca.renzoni@nehgs.org.

Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.

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Here at NEHGS we’re always working to improve some of our older databases.  We’re re-launching Lincoln County ME: Commissioners Marriage Records, 1759-1777 and Westfield, MA: Deaths in the First Church, 1728-1836.  Both of these collections are based on manuscripts held in our collection.  Each collection now has images.  We want to thank our volunteers for their help with these projects; including Margo Blank, Elizabeth Handler, Arlys LaFehr, Liz Odell, and Marie Wells.

At its beginning, Lincoln County, Maine covered most of the modern state.  It was established at the same time as Cumberland County, stretching from that western border north and east towards modern Canada.  Marriages in this collection are found in modern Hancock, Kennebec, Knox, Sagadahoc, and Washington counties, as well as Lincoln.

In the 1700s, Westfield was a frontier town, on the very western edge of Massachusetts’ boundaries at that time.  Settlers to the area farmed the alluvial valley.  Congregations have been worshiping in the same church building in Westfield since 1860, although the church was first established around 1673.

Lincoln County, ME: Commissioners Marriage Records 1759-1777 is now indexed by:

• first and last name
• spouses’ first and last names
• location
• date
• all records have the record type “Marriage.”

Westfield, MA: Deaths in the First Church, 1728-1836 is now indexed by:

• first and last name
• parents’ first and last names
• spouses’ first and last names
• date
• all records have the record type “Death”
• all records have the location Westfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, United States

Please note: These databases are available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.

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We’ve added 9 new volumes to Massachusetts: (Image Only) Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900 from St. Rose of Lima in Chelsea.  St. Rose of Lima was the first Catholic church established in Chelsea; their church building was dedicated in 1865.  They named their parish for the first saint born in the Americas.  This update consists of the following volumes, amounting to over 3,000 new pages.  We want to thank our wonderful scanners Eileen McCarthy, Angela Napolitano, Ross and Linda Weaver, and John Phlo for their help in digitizing this parish!

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms and Marriages, 1850-1867

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms, 1867-1874

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms, 1874-1882

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms, 1882-1889

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms, 1890-1893

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms, 1894-1897

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Baptisms, 1897-1900

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Marriages, 1867-1888

St. Rose of Lima (Chelsea) Marriages, 1888-1900

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We have added a new volume to the searchable database of authenticated Mayflower Pilgrim genealogies, Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880:

• Billington, John (Vol.21)

This database is being constructed from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD) very well-known series of books Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620 which document the first generation of descendants of the Pilgrims. Through our partnership with GSMD, American Ancestors is delivering this database with a full index of the fifth-generation descendants, and their children, coupled with the page images for those people.

John Billington travelled on Mayflower with his wife Elinor and sons John and Francis. His family was particularly troublesome for the order-loving Puritans. Billington killed a fellow colony member with whom he had a long-running feud, John Newcomen, and was hanged for the crime in 1630. He was the first man executed by hanging in the colony.

This database index includes birth, baptism, marriage, death, and deed records for these individuals, and where available, the names of parents and spouses.

This update is made possible by the invaluable efforts of our team of volunteers, including; Rich Wood, Marie Wells, and David Anderson. We appreciate the work of all our volunteers. If you would like to join the team, please contact Bianca Renzoni, Database Services Volunteer Coordinator bianca.renzoni@nehgs.org.

Please note: This database is available to Individual-level and above NEHGS members only. Consider membership.

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We’ve added three new volumes from St. George in Framingham to Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900.  In One Hundred Years of Progress, James S. Sullivan describes the mills that arose in Framingham, drawing immigrants (particularly Catholics) from other countries.  He says, “in no place did they receive a heartier welcome than in Framingham…it should not be surprising that the little hamlet Saxonville [where St. George is located] should take such a prominent part in the early days of Catholicity in New England. (p.778)”  This latest addition includes over 4,000 new records and over 18,000 new names.  The new volumes are:

St. George (Framingham) Baptisms, 1878-1900

St. George (Framingham) Baptisms and Marriages, 1848-1859

St. George (Framingham) Marriages, 1894-1900

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We’ve added 2 new parishes to Massachusetts: (Image Only) Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900: St. Anthony of Padua in Allston, and St. Margaret in Dorchester.  Both of these parishes grew out of existing parishes as the Catholic population in Boston grew in the late 1800s.  St. Margaret branched off from St. Peter’s in Dorchester.  The plans for constructing this church were officially embarked upon on June 10, 1893, the feast of St. Margaret.  St. Anthony’s grew from St. Columbkille in Brighton.  The cornerstone was laid in 1894.  James S. Sullivan’s One Hundred Years of Progress, written in 1895 to celebrate the centennial of the Archdiocese, describes in detail the construction of the church which was still in progress, explaining the future location of the altar (to be made of stone and marble) and the choir loft.

A note on St. Margaret (Dorchester) Baptisms and Marriages, 1893-1900:  This volume consists of two books which began separately and were later bound together.  Usually at the front of a volume in this collection, we have an “Index” page which should give you an idea of how best to browse through the book.  This volume has two different indexes, one for the marriages, and one for the baptisms.  I’ve created Index_1 which explains how to browse the marriages, and Index_2 which explains how to browse the baptisms.  Pages are numbered as B_1 or M_1 to allow for the fact that there are two pages called one, for example, in this volume.

This update consists of the following volumes:

St. Anthony of Padua (Allston) Baptisms, 1986-1900

St. Anthony of Padua (Allston) Marriages, 1896-1900

St. Margaret (Dorchester) Baptisms, 1893-1899

St. Margaret (Dorchester) Baptisms and Marriages, 1893-1900

St. Margaret (Dorchester) Confirmations, 1894-1900

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