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MICROFICHE HOLDINGS
Presently we offer over 23,000 microfiches of original records
published by Holbrook Research Institute and marketed by Archive
Publishing. Additionally, we offer 325 microfiches of printed
vital records. These publications
provide over 450 collections of town records on microfiches to
help you find persons who lived in Massachusetts at any time
between 1620 and 1905.
PRINTED VITAL RECORDS
How did we begin? Well, several years ago, when hunting for birth,
marriage, and death records in Massachusetts, my wife and I once
relied solely on an old, printed series called the Massachusetts
Vital Records to 1850. This set, clothed in light tan and found
in many public libraries, made our research easy because all
the names are arranged in alphabetical order.
That is, we thought it easy until we started
searching for some of our 17th-century ancestors who migrated
from Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Windsor, Connecticut, and
then up the river into Northampton, Massachusetts. We looked
and looked for a printed book for Northampton, but never found
one. Then we learned that printed vital records did not exist
for over one-third of the towns in Massachusetts!
ORIGINAL VITAL RECORDS
Not long after that, we began filming original vital records
in Massachusetts city and town halls--bound manuscripts found no where else.
By now, we have filmed the records in almost all of those cities and towns--and most
of them are indexed.
ORIGINAL TOWN RECORDS
The more we filmed, however, the more we observed that the manuscripts
stashed away in each town contained much valuable data besides
vital records. In fact, most towns have at least ten to twenty
volumes of handwritten town records, but in some of the bigger
towns and cities, we filmed many more; e.g., 331 volumes in Boston,
52 in Hingham, 41 in Worcester, and 39 in Pittsfield.
In these town record volumes, you will discover
records of church members, paupers, mortgages, property and
animal owners; together with tax, military, and voter lists.
You may even find your ancestor's signature. In brief, these
fiches will enable you to experience what an Otis town clerk
described as "much matter which is useful, curious, humorous
and entertaining."
STATE-WIDE INDEXES
Further, we filmed state-wide, vital-record indexes of 1841-1895
found at the Massachusetts State Archives. This collection includes
54 volumes of
birth indexes on 417 fiches, 42 volumes of
marriage
indexes on 327 fiches and 39 volumes of death indexes on 310
fiches.
WHERE TO START
To begin, select a town from the drop-down list, and click to
learn what records exist for it. To browse, go to either the Massachusetts
Counties or original records listings. For other New England records, click on
the list of Early American Records.
If you have questions, contact us at query@archivepublishing.com
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