Early Boston record books (also known as the Boston Record Commissioner Books) online

Libraries with New England genealogy collections often contain a well-known series of Boston record books published from 1876 to 1909. Over the years, the multi-volume set changed its title (from First [Second, Third, etc.] Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston to Records Relating to the Early History of Boston), making it difficult to find the series online.

Luckily, you can view and search each volume at Archive.org. The site offers several different methods of viewing the books, such as flipping pages online, full text, and downloadable PDFs. To help you find these valuable books at the site, I’ve compiled the series list with direct links to each book online.

Remember to check each volume’s index to browse through the names for variants spellings.

1. Boston Tax Lists 1674 and 1676
2. Boston Town Records 1634-1660
3. Charlestown Land Records 1638-1802
4. Dorchester Land Records
5. “Gleaner” articles from the Boston Daily Transcript by Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch (1855)
6. Roxbury Land and Church Records
7. Boston Town Records 1660-1701
8. Boston Town Records 1700-1728
9. Boston Births, Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths 1630-1699
10. Miscellaneous Papers
11. Boston Selectmen's Records 1701-1715
12. Boston Town Records 1729-1742
13. Boston Selectmen's Records 1716-1736
14. Boston Town Records 1742-1757
15. Boston Selectmen's Records 1736-1742
16. Boston Town Records 1758-1769
17. Boston Selectmen's Records 1742/3-1753
18. Boston Town Records 1770-1777
19. Boston Selectmen's Records 1754-1763
20. Boston Selectmen's Records 1764-1768
21. Dorchester Births, Marriages, and Deaths to end of 1825
22. United States Census 1790, Tax Statistics 1798
23. Boston Selectmen's Records 1769 to April 1775
24. Boston Births 1700-1800
25. Boston Selectmen's Records 1776-1786
26. Boston Town Records 1778-1783
27. Boston Selectmen's Records 1787-1798
28. Boston Marriages 1700-1751
29. Miscellaneous Papers
30. Boston Marriages 1752-1809
31. Boston Town Records 1784-1796
32. Aspinwall Notarial Records 1644-1651
33. Boston Selectmen's Records 1799-1810
34. The Town of Roxbury: Memorable Persons and Places by Francis S. Drake
35. Boston Town Records 1796-1813
36. Dorchester Births, Marriages, and Deaths 1826-1849
37. Boston Town Records 1814-1822
38. Boston Selectmen's Records 1811-August 1818
39. Boston Selectmen's Records September 1818-April 1822