New England History and Geneological Research

Table of Contents-Under Construction

This website: http://retson.ca/NewEnglandGenealogySites.html

1. Canadian Sources

2. Border Crossings from Ancestry .ca / Ancestry.com

3. Online Web Genealogies as Secondary Sources (Often Inaccurate)

4 New England Historical and Geneological Websites: http://www.newenglandancestors.org/ as on line depositary for Innumerable Databases, New England Historical Genealogical Register, Great Migration Newsletter 1620-1640 (Requires membership for database)

 

Local Histories

See below until Taqble of Contents is completed

1. Canadian Sources

Contact  with Canadian Genealogy Societies along borders or in areas where there is a lot of immigration from New England can reveal a lot of completed research particularly in the Maritimes

Example: Colchester Historical Society has extensive files, monographs or books on immigrants from New England

For Retson Family in Nova Scotia Specific Examples:

Jane Currie: The Lynds Family; The Descendents of Samuel Archibald; Gwen Lefton: Ancestral lines; George Hoare: By Way of New England

2.Border Crossings from Ancestry .ca / Ancestry.com

Example:  Crossing the Border: US to Canada 1908-1935

http://content.ancestry.ca/iexec/?htx=list&dbid=1344&offerid=0%3a7858%3a0

Sometimes you get little information such as

Mrs E Retson born abt 1857 on 20 Mar 1917 crossed at Walkerville, Ontario

At other times considerably more including last known address

3.Online Web Genealogies as Secondary Sources (Often Inaccurate)

 Use Google to find using the known ancestor( + name of a second person or keyword to limit search) results for more useful sites. Examples: John Hoar will give you about 99100 entries

including the following websites:

 http://www3.telus.net/roundtuit/hoar

http://users.sisna.com/mhobart/US/LRHobart-LMTrask/Wc_toc.htm

http://www.lfthompson.com/descendants_charleshoar.htm  *

http://www.lfthompson.com/mary_rowlandson.htm

http://www.hannahdustin.com/maryrolandson.htm

http://boards.ancestry.ca/surnames.hoar/217.1/mb.ashx

http://www.lfthompson.com/more_johnhoar.htm * *(Some Information Misleading Site)

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=hoar_and_horr

Use information as leads only - Other genealogy can provide leads and can also mis-direct

4 New England Historical and Geneological Websites: http://www.newenglandancestors.org/ as on line depositary for Innumerable Databases, New England Historical Genealogical Register, Great Migration Newsletter 1620-1640 (Requires membership for database)

list of Databases by Record Type

Choose Database to get to http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/services/default.asp type name to be searched

Your search for John Hoar returned 242 hits in the databases below.

Click on a Database to view the search results

 

Matches

The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1847-2008 

77

Cemeteries

9

Census, Tax and Voters lists

11

Church Records

4

Court Records

3

Genealogy and Biography

2

Great Migration Study Project

4

Military

2

Newspapers and Periodicals

11

Probate Records

8

Vital Records

New journals now available online include:

The Connecticut Nutmegger: since 1968, the Nutmegger is the ‘journal of record’ for the Connecticut Society of Genealogists, and includes vital records, probate records, bible records, headstone records, memorials and other useful research for families with Connecticut ties.  

New Netherlands Connections: since 1996 by Dorothy A. Koenig, this journal focuses on the Dutch colonial period (1624-1664) in New York and New Jersey. Each issue has feature articles, replies to queries, and items of Dutch colonial interest. Particular attention is paid to identifying the European origins of New Netherland settlers.

The American Genealogist (TAG): Published since 1923, TAG represents an important body of scholarly research covering the breadth of the United States, with an early preference for New England.

The Virginia Genealogist: Published from 1957 to 2006, this journal includes compiled genealogies, personal property tax lists, court orders, deeds, wills, marriage registers, and other county sources from Virginia.

5. Books/Books on CDs, especially Pope and Savage

Too many Books to comment on but New England Historical and Genealogical Site can give you leads

Some Key Examples in My Research:

Brandon Fradd, The Winslow Families of Worcestershire 1400-1700 (in checking out a Website lead)

Compendium of New England Pioneers: A Collection of 14 Classic Genealogical Dictionaries of New England Settlers Archive CD Books USA $90

Includes:

Charles Henry Pope, The Pioneers of Massachusetts, A Descriptive list, Drawn from Records of the Colonies, Towns and Churches, and other Contemporaneous Documents (1900, Boston). Ref. US0292 ISBN: 1-933828-45-5

Pope has entries for more than five thousand persons found in the records of Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1620 and 1650. The author follows each resident of these colonies until death, utilizing many sources not employed by Savage and others who had covered the same period. Pope squeezes into his entries information from ship passenger lists, lists of freemen, church records, town records, deeds and wills. Of especial importance, the author included data from the Massachusetts Archives papers, from the Middlesex County Court Files and from the notarial records of Thomas Lechford and William Aspinwall, sources not mined by previous compilers of similar compendia.

James Savage. A Genealogical Dictionary of The First Settlers of New England Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692 on the Basis of Farmer’s Register.Four Volumes 1860-1862 Ref. US0205

Savage covers every family that he could find in the first, second and third generations of settlement. His coverage in the Boston area is perhaps better than farther away.

Savage has been superseded in a limited portion of his range by the Great Migration Study Project, but that effort has at this date covered somewhat less than half of the immigrant generation, and will never cover the second and third generations in the way that Savage did.

6. Magazines/ Newsletters: New England Historical and Genealogical Register and New England Ancestors

Get By menbership in New England Historical and Genealogical Society: On line or Paper: Incredible Source of Professional or Professional Quality Research

7. Great Migration Project:

1. Newsletters: Great Migration Newsletters

2. The Great Migration Begins 1620-1633

3. Immigrants to New England 1634-35

8. Census

Information generally gathered from Census: Address; name; household relationship; sex; age; birth date; race; but varies over 220 years

•Census on line www.census-online.com/links/ 55000 links to Census Data

•National Archive Site on Census http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/

•USGenWeb Census Project http://www.us-census.org/inventory/ Free Census Data

•Ancestry.com Census Index and Images for 1790 to 1850, 1920, 1930, images 1870-1910

9. Passenger lists

Original and Reconstructed lists at www.newenglandancestors.org

Choose :

>Database and Research > Articles

>Search  our site>enter ”Passenger lists” (With and Without quotes)

This will lead you to enough resources and websites to last you for the rest of your life

Benefit of this site over Google or Cindi’s list on Passenger list is concentration on resources relevant to this region

Examples:

http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/Passengers/passengers.php This site is useful if you can get a common relative to one who came on Mayflower in order to get prior relatives

Other useful resources on Passenger lists include,

Cyndis list Ships and Passengers

http://www.cyndislist.com/portsentry.htm - cyndi's list Port of entry

Great Migration Newsletters

John Camden Hotten, The Original lists of Persons of Quality, 1880 (Reprinted  1962,1968)

Charles Edward Banks, the Planters of the Commonwealth 1930 Reprinted 1961

Peter Wilson Coldham, The Complete Book of Emigrants

10. Freeman lists

Serfdom is the socioeconomic status of unfree peasants under feudalism and specifically manorialism. Serfdom was the enforced labour of serfs on the fields of landowners, in return for protection and the right to work on their leased fields. Freemen were essentially rent-paying tenants farmers who owed little or no service to the lord.  The usual serf (not including slaves or cottars) paid his fees and taxes in the form of seasonally appropriate labour. By 16oo in England serfdom became rare and freeman was essentially rent paying tenants of lords.  In New England the terms and conditions to become freeman, the process by which one became freeman and the rights and duties of freemen varied from town to town and changed throughout the sixteen hundreds.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony began as the “governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England” receiving its charter on March 4 1628/29. This charter established the “Great and General Court and named 26 individuals. Initially these men were the only ones who could vote in the company affairs.  The first meetings were held in England but few went to New England.  The first meeting in New England was held in Charlestown. In a meeting on October 19 1630 it was proposed that freeman should have the power of choosing Assistants and the Assistants choose the Governor and Deputy Governor who with the Assistants would have the power to make laws and choose officers.

On May 18 1631 118 men were made free and the proposal of October 19 1630 was confirmed and a requirement was made “no man shall be admitted to the freemen of this body politic, but such as are members of some church within the limits of the same”.

The system for creating freeman of 1631 remained until August 3 1664 when requirements of being a property owner of land at least shillings.

The existence or non existence of freeman status can help in identifying dates of arrival and departures, admission to a Church and in the opposite direction the dating of a church

The “Bodies of liberties” sets out the duties and obligations of freeman. Freeman swore oaths of fidelity to the corporate entity to which they were freeman.  The most valuable privilege is the right to vote for the corporation’s officers such as Selectmen, governor or assistant.

Additional Information GMN Vol. 1-15: 17,145-6, 301-306

11.Colony and Court Records

Colony and Court Records

In early colonies where executive, legislative and judicial had not achieved full separation the records of general courts could include business of all varieties.

The colonial records for Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Haven have all been transcribed and published and are at times identified by the following respective labels

MBCR   Massachusetts Bay

PCR  Plymouth

RICR  Rhode Island,

CCCR   Connecticut

NHCR    New Haven

12.Town Records (Subsequent State Records)

Early town records often recorded dates of births, marriages and deaths of inhabitants. These can be accessed by NEHGR on line

Major Towns in 1600-1700

Notes
Often records have been reported in the New England Historic Genealogical Register (NEHGR); As well a series of articles on towns are found in the Great Migration Newsletters (GMN)
Boston Area (Massachusetts Bay) early included Watertown , Cambridge, Dorchester, Charlestown, Roxbury, In 1852 – 1853 the New England Historic Register carried a series on  the “Early Records of Boston”  NEHGR 6: 380, 7:159-62, 281-84, GMN 3:3: GMN 7:3 ; 12:19
Braintree, MA: 10:19
Cambridge, MA: GMN 1:11; GMN 7:11; 9 :11
Charlestown, MA: GMN 2:3; 6 :29
Dedham, MA: GMN 4: 3Dorchester, MA: GMN  1:27
Dover, MA : GMN 6:11
Exeter, MA : GMN 8 :3
 Hampton, MA: GMN 4:19
Hartford, Connecticut: 3:27
Hingham, MA: 7:27
Ipswich MA: GMN 3:19; 15:1
Lynn, Essex County, MA:  GMN 1:19
Middlesex County, MA: 7:19
New Haven, Conn: GMN 6:3; 13:3; 13:9
Piscataqua, MA: GMN2:27
Plymouth, MA : GMN 3 :11
Portsmouth, Rhode Island: GMN4:11
Providence, Rhode Island: GMN 8:19
Richmond Island GMN 6:31
Rowley, MA GMN 10:27
Roxbury, MA: GMN2:11; 6:19
Salem, MA: GMN2:19
Salisbury, MA : 8 :27; 13:3
Scituate, MA : GMN 5 :11
Southampton GMN 5:3
Springfield, MA:  GMN 5:19
Stamford GMN 9:3
Sudbury, MA GMN 9:19
Taunton, Ma: GMN 8:11
Warwick, MA: GMN 9:27
Watertown, MA:  GMN 1: 3; 11:19
Wethersfield, Conn GMN 4:27
Weymouth, MA: GMN 5:27
Windsor, Conn: GMN 10:3
Woburn GMN 15:1; 15:19

13.State Records (Vital Records)

Births,   Marriage   Death Records

“Hatch”  “Matched”    “Dispatched”

 http://www.vitalrec.com/ vitalrec.com -the most comprehensive resource for locating vital records United States Birth Certificates, Death Records & Marriage licenses. This site lists the state agency responsible and contact information, including email and on-line to states Website. It Includes a brief history of vital records registration. For each state dates of state taking over record keeping differs. For Massachusetts Vital Records. Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates. Certified or transcribed records of Massachusetts birth, marriage and or death events from 1916 - 2009, can be ordered directly from this web site. Discover what type of detail is contained in each Massachusetts birth, marriage, and or death record before you request a search. "Most records in Massachusetts, including birth, marriage, divorce and death records, are considered public records. Records not accessible to the public are sealed or restricted records. They can include adoptions, a birth out of wedlock or a marriage under legal age." This policy of "open access" is highly unusual for most states do not allow access for a specified period of time. The neighboring state of Rhode Island for example, does not allow access to death records until 50 years after the event and 100 years for births and marriages. Massachusetts by far has one of the most complete and preserved collection of vital records of any state in the country. In fact as early as 1841, it was the first state in the country to attempt a statewide centralization of vital records. Because of that centralization, researchers have the very good fortune, if they choose, of searching literally two sets of records. Every vital event - birth, marriage or death - must be recorded by the town or city clerk where the event occurred. A copy of this record is then sent to the state authorities. Hence, the two sets of records. For researchers, this is truly a bonanza for if the town, city or even the county is not known, the statewide indexes can be consulted. If the town or city is known, researchers can access records directly from the local town or city clerk's office. This is especially helpful when dealing with a common surname such as Smith, Jones or Brown. the most comprehensive resource for locating vital records

 

Statewide Location Of Vital Records

Each of these collections, or locations, are described in more detail by following the appropriate link. Both locations are based on the date on which the vital record event took place:

1916 - 2009 (Department of Health)**

**For current (last 90 day) events: The town or city clerk has up to 90 days to forward copies of all vital records to the state. Unfortunately, there are some towns that can take longer than 90 days. Therefore, if you're looking for a recent vital record (last six months or so), you may also need to know the specific town or city in which the event occurred.

http://userdb.rootsweb.ancestry.com/regional.html   A user contributed database of births, marriage and deaths, See also

www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/marriages/ 

www.worldgenweb.org/archives/

14.Land Records

Land was granted to groups of settlers who were willing to establish new towns and that in turn parceled out the land to individual landholders. Sales were in the early years recorded by town. Generally the first grant was a house lot about 5 acres, and the right to proprietary shares attached to this lot. Subsequent grants would include a few small grants of meadow land (marsh or swamp) then some arable land and finally some woodland or upland. This same pattern was followed in Nova Scotia.

15. Church Records

Because religion was often the primary motivation for migration establishing a church was one of the first order of business.

Where records exist they provide some of the best evidence of immigrants to New England in the early years.

Secondary source records may be found at from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register at http://www.newenglandancestors.org/

The Great Migration Newsletter has several articles relating to records

16. Cemeteries

Starting  off point from Kenora is

www.newenglandancestors.org/

Choose database to get to

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/services/default.asp

Cemetery Transcriptions from the NEHGS Manuscript Collections

Even if you intend to visit cemetery makes sense to get your information ahead

17. Probate

Starting  off point from Kenora is www.newenglandancestors.org/ Choose database to get to

www.newenglandancestors.org/research/services/default.asp

Example for Search for John Hoar

Probate Records 8     Index to the Probate Records of Middlesex County, Massachusetts 4     Abstracts of Wills, Administrations and Guardianships in NY State, 1787 - 1835 1     Index to Providence, Rhode Island, Probate 1646-1899 1     Probate Index of Worcester County, Massachusetts

1704 Hoar, Hoare John Concord Administration  number 11589

18. Obituaries

For modern time Obituaries Google still the best starting point

At New England Historical and Genealogical Society look under Newspapers and Periodical

19. Newspaper Databases

These databases are available to all NEHGS members except Subscription and Institutional Members.

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/database_search/2213.asp

Access NewspaperARCHIVE contains tens of millions of searchable newspaper pages, dating as far back as the 1700s. It includes well over 2,000 titles, covering over 600 cities. This valuable research tool is published by NewspaperARCHIVE.com, an archive of online newspapers. Use this database to view, save, and print full-page newspapers.

View the database now 

19th Century U.S. Newspapers database!  
The 19th Century U.S. Newspapers database provides access to approximately 1.7 million pages of primary source newspaper  content from throughout the 19th century. It features full-text content and images from hundreds of newspapers from every region in the U.S. -- rural and urban, large cities and small town, coast to coast and beyond. The collection emphasizes such topics as the American Civil War, Western migration, African-American history, and Antebellum-era life among other subjects.

View the database now

Early American Newspapers, Series I 1690-1876
Explore your early American ancestors and the America of yesterday! The New England Historic Genealogical Society is excited to offer to its members an invaluable resource, Early American Newspapers, Series I 1690-1876..

View the database now

20. Military

Massachusetts

Massachusetts Soldiers in the Colonial Wars

Randolph, Massachusetts Civil War Veterans

Massachusetts Revolutionary War Pensioners' Receipts, 1829-1837

Massachusetts Revolutionary War Pensioners' Receipts, 1799-1807

list of Pensioners in the State of Massachussetts

Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati - Free Database!

Massachusetts Militia Companies and Officers in the Lexington Alarm

Divided Hearts, Massachusetts Loyalists, 1765-1790

Rhode Island

Members of the Artillery company of Newport, Rhode Island

U.S. Revolutionary War Naval Pensioners' Receipts, 1829-1832

Vermont

Roster of Vermont Soldiers in World War I - (1917-1919)

Miscellaneous Web sites

Canadian Resources on New England

Census

Colony and Court Records

Mayflower

Newsletters

Passenger lists

United States

New England

Miscellaneous

Vital Statistics

Local Histories