Massachusetts State Facts & Information

Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the states of New England. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and southeast, Rhode Island and Connecticut on the south, and New York on the west. North of Massachusetts lie Vermont and New Hampshire. Boston is the capital and largest city of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts entered the Union on February 6, 1788, as the sixth of the original 13 states. When still a colony, it had become an important intellectual center, known for Harvard College and the cultural institutions of Boston. Many events in Massachusetts, including the Stamp Act riots (1765), the Boston Massacre (1770), and the Boston Tea Party (1773), were precursors to the American Revolution (1775-1783). The first battles of the revolution were fought in Massachusetts, and its role in colonial history can be seen in the many well-preserved landmarks in such historic places as Plymouth, Boston, Lexington, and Concord. Once the nation’s fishing and commercial capital, Massachusetts later pioneered in the fields of education, medicine, and social welfare. By the 19th century the state developed into an important manufacturing center, producing textiles and footwear; in the mid-20th century, electronic components and other high-technology items became leading manufactures. Massachusetts is famous for its summer resorts, such as the sand beaches of Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and from its long irregular shoreline to the rolling Berkshire Hills the state offers a variety of opportunities to those seeking recreation.

The name of the state is probably derived from that of an Algonquin village. Massachusetts is called the Bay State after Massachusetts Bay, the site of the Puritans’ colony. Those early settlers from Europe provide the state with other nicknames, including the Pilgrim State and the Puritan State. The Official State Website is http://www.mass.gov/.

Most school children know that the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod in 1620 and went on to establish Plymouth Colony. Though not the first permanent white settlement in the New World, its impact, based on the experimental ideals of freedom of religion and self-government, has certainly been felt, as has that of its neighbor to the near north, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, established in 1630. During the “Great Migration” between 1630-42, an estimated twenty-thousand of people left England and arrived in these two colonies which eventually merged in 1691, to become the Province of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts was the stepping stone for numerous other colonies that developed along the New England coast and for thousands of immigrants who came in waves across the Atlantic over the last three centuries. Settlements grew first along the shores, then along the river banks, and later were carved out of the forests rich with furs and lumber. These settlements butted up against the cultural differences of the native inhabitants, and contained within themselves festering differences of opinion regarding religious and political views.

Some of those who dissented from their neighbors' views set out to begin their own communities, moving farther and farther west in the colony and sometimes emigrating to other locations, including most of the Eastern seaboard. They often took with them ideas about government and record keeping from their former Massachusetts communities.

Settlement continued steadily based on the peaceful accord between natives, represented particularly by agreement with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, and settlers. All that changed in 1675 when Massasoit's son King Phillip (Metacom) declared open warfare, raiding fifty town in southeastern and central settlements. A year later, the resulting death (including King Phillip's) and destruction in towns ended the warfare, but confidence in settlement was not restored. The Peace of Utrecht in 1713, bringing sweeping changes to the political and economic enterprises in Europe, marking the beginning of Great Britain's colonial and commercial power, stepped up the pace of immigration again.

In the next two decades more and more towns were established as the population grew in all of lower New England. Warfare reared its influence again in a long series of French and Indian wars throughout all the colonies, sending settlers scrambling for safety back from the frontiers to the more securely established towns.

By the time of the American Revolution, nearly everyone still in Massachusetts could trace their ancestry to one of those 20,000 people in the first major immigration. Many of the French Huguenots, Irish, and Ulster-Scots who had also emigrated before the American Revolution, often married into the English families who had arrived earlier. There were also a few Portuguese and some Germans in the early development of the colonies, but it was not until later that these ethnic groups immigrated in large numbers.

Long known for disagreements with the Crown, Massachusetts' ideals and strong voice became a catalyst for the American Revolution. Minutemen and Loyalists, sometimes in the same family, served their respective causes. They were supported on both sides by family memers and former neighbors who had settled in all of the New England colonies. The conclusion of the war found some former New Englanders in the provinces of Canada or the Port of New Orleans for their loyal opposition, and an even larger number of patriots moved to the newly developing frontiers in northern New England and New York. Maine, which remained part of the state of Massachusetts even after the Revolution, became as separate state in 1820.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was soon in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, which incorporated people with more cultural and linguistic differences. A glimpse of it could be seen as early as the mid-seventeenth century when hundreds of Scottish prisoners—cheap labor for the iron works in Braintree and Lynn—had arrived in Boston's harbor. Although the steady stream of immigrants to Boston's port continued over the next two centuries, the Irish Potato Famine widened that stream considerably in the 1840s and 1850s, providing the Industrial Revolution with a labor force previously unavailable in New England. Many other ethnic groups soon followed.

Massachusetts citizens fought another war of Northern “ideals”, sending its sons, and some daughters, to battlefields in the Civil War. New York eventually outdistanced Massachusetts as an port for immigration, but the industrial development and ethnic diversity of Massachusetts have had a profound impact on the reality of life in New England and left records of a rich history for researchers.

• Newspapers & Periodicals - The Newspapers & Periodicals Collection lets you discover a wealth of information about your ancestors from many historical newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals. These types of sources can often supplement public records and provide information that is not recorded anywhere else. Here, you can learn more about your ancestor's possible daily activities by placing them in the context of their time.
• Stories, Memories & Histories - Stories and histories compiled by others researching a person or area can be an amazing source of information about your ancestors. Not only do they generally contain dates and places of vital events like birth, marriage, and death, but they often relate stories and memories that help you really get to know the character of your ancestors.
• Family Trees - Ancestry has thousands of family trees shared by other members. They can help you identify how ancestors are related and give you clues about birth, marriage, and death information. Family trees are an excellent resource for filling in gaps in your research or even to simply know where to begin.
• Pictures - One of the more exciting discoveries in doing family history research is finding a photograph of your ancestors or their residence. Finding historic postcard photos and drawings of towns and important events throughout history can also give you a visual look into your ancestors lives.
• Reference Materials & Finding Aids - Reference materials, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other how-to books, can be tremendously helpful in finding and interpreting historical documents. Many of these books can help you learn where to look for more information and how to use what you've already found to uncover more clues.

Massachusetts County List

 

The following county pages has beginning dates and locations of Massachusetts deeds, probates, and court records. Inquiries for land records should be addressed “Registry of Deeds” at the county (or district) seat. In some counties division of the Registry of Deeds became necessary to make the location closer to the land involved in the transaction. Make sure the deed information sought falls in the appropriate district for the time period and geography involved.

The “Probate Court Clerk” at county seat should be addressed for probate records; and “Clerk of Courts” for civil court records. Choose from the counties below to view the county information.

Massachusetts Town Resources

See Also Massachusetts City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates

Nearly all of the vital records have been microfilmed and are available either through the FHL, Massachusetts State Archives, Berkshire Athenaeum, or Boston Public Library. In addition, only a handful of towns do not have some of their births and marriages included in the latest (1988) IGI.

Early records of town meetings have been published for a number of Massachusetts towns and some are interspersed in the original vital record books on microfiche distributed by Archive Publishing, 57 Locust Street, Oxford, MA 01540. Those for Middlesex County towns are at the Boston Public Library, New England Historic Genealogical Society, or can be acquired through Early Massachusetts Records, Inc., 1154 Boylston, Boston, MA 02215. A descriptive guide to the collection was published in 1976 and can be obtained from that address.

The researcher should assume that vital records, whether in separate books or in town records, begin with the formation of the town, as do the town records. See parent towns for earlier records; and the county for beginning dates of deeds, probates, and court records. Clerks respond to inquires regarding vital records, since most have indexes available, but unindexed town records with details of town life - officers, tax lists, freeman's lists, cattle and hog marks, voting lists, warnings out, overseer's of the poor accounts, school records - must be searched in person either through microfilm or at the town's office. See Also Massachusetts City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates

• Directories & Member Lists - Directories and member lists are typically compilations of information about people who belonged to various associations and groups or lived within city boundaries. They can be thought of as the predecessors to the modern-day phone book and usually list names, addresses, and sometimes the occupations of your ancestors.

Massachusetts Discontinued Counties

 

This section provides an list of Massachusetts counties that no longer exist. They were established by the state, provincial, or territorial government. Most of these counties were created and disbanded in the 19th century; county boundaries have changed little since 1900 in the vast majority of states.

• Cornwall County: Was a county of the former Province of New York, established on September 5, 1665 from 25,100 Square Miles of land that had been granted to the Duke of York in modern Maine. As established, the grant ran all the way from the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean,and produced what today is most of Aroostook, Piscataquis, Washington, Hancock, Penobscot, Waldo, Knox, Lincoln, Kennebec, Somerset, and Sagadahoc Counties. On October 7, 1673, 200 Square Miles of this grant along the border with then existing Massachusetts was partitioned to form Devonshire, Massachusetts. The remainder of this grant was lost to the Abnaki Indians in a war in the Autumn of 1675.
  Cornwall County was recreated on November 1, 1683, conforming to the original grant, still part of New York. Cornwall continued unchanged until the Spring of 1687, when Cornwall was transferred to the expanded Dominion of New England. Cornwall County was transferred to Massachusetts in 1692 and called Yorkshire. Much of this region became part of Maine when that state was admitted in 1820.
  
• Devonshire County: District of Maine, Massachusetts Bay Colony was a short-lived county formed during the colonial territorial disputes between the Province of Massachusetts and the Province of Maine. The county existed from 1674 to 1675.
• Dukes County: Dukes County, New York was formed on November 1, 1683 by New York from the Elizabeth Islands, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Island, all beyond the eastern end of Long Island in the Province of New York. It was formed at the same time as Kings County, New York, Queens County, New York, and Dutchess County, New York. The entire county was transferred to the newly formed Province of Massachusetts Bay, where it formed Dukes County, Massachusetts and Nantucket County, Massachusetts.
• Norfolk County: Was one of the original four counties created in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The county existed from 1643 to 1679. In 1680 the towns of this county were divided between Essex County, Massachusetts and the newly formed state of New Hampshire so that the county ceased to exist. The former Norfolk County is often referred to as "Old Norfolk County." A new county was established as Norfolk County, Massachusetts from most of the southern portion of Suffolk County in 1793.
• York County:Was a county in what is now Maine. In 1760, it was divided into three counties: York, Cumberland and Lincoln counties. In 1778, the Continental Congress divided the District of Maine, the northernmost of three districts in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Burned Courthouses

 

The destruction of courthouses greatly affects genealogists in every way. No only are these historic structures torn from our lives, so are the records they housed: marriage, wills, probate, land records, and others. Once destroyed they are lost forever. Even if they have been placed on mircofilm, computers and film burn too. The most heartbreaking side of this is the fact that many of our courthouses are destroyed at the hands of arsonist. However, not all records were lost.

   Below is a list of Massachusetts Counties and the years the Courthouses were subjected to a disaster. This does NOT mean that ALL RECORDS were lost. Often, folks took their documents again in for recording after a disaster and later deeds will contain long chains of title, etc.

• Barnstable County - Fire destroyed nearly all the early deed books and probate files, but probate books survived. Although the official deed books only begin in 1827, many deeds were pre-recorded back to about 1783, though these are far from complete.