The Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library collections: a timeline from 1799 to 2018

Inside the Phillips Library in Salem, Massachusetts, 1885

One of the oldest research libraries in the country, Phillips Library contains more than 400,000 rare books and 117,000 square feet of manuscripts, original papers, photographic images, and prints from Salem and Essex county, Massachusetts, to places around the world. It's probably best known as the repository for the 1692 Salem witch trials documents; letters and manuscripts from Nathaniel Hawthorne and his literary circle; plus ships' logs and maritime journals documenting travels to the Far East. 

Of particular interest are local family histories and town records, military records, original genealogical papers, newspapers and city directories, charts and maps, business and social records, papers of notable Americans, works of regional authors, broadsides and ephemera, publications from literary and historical societies, art and architecture books, history books, and materials related to its museum collections.

For more than 200 years, the Phillips Library collection has been an integral part of Salem. The timeline, below, shows how the Phillips Library started and grew—and where it's headed next.

1799 East India Marine Society founded for creating a library on navigation and seafaring topics and collecting curiosities from native cultures of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.

1821 Essex Historical Society founded.

1833 Essex County Natural History Society founded.

1848 Essex Institute formed by the union of the Essex Historical Society and Essex County Natural History Society; focus on literary, historical, and scientific pursuits; museum library, historic houses, educational programs, scholarly publications.

1857 Plummer Hall built for Salem Athenaeum with money provided in the 1845 will of Caroline Plummer; Essex Institute rented rooms at Plummer Hall for library and collections.

1867-1868 Peabody Academy of Science formed with the purchase of the East India Marine Hall along with the historic and ethnological collections of East India Marine Society. Essex Institute permanently transferred its natural history collections, originally collected by the Essex County Natural History Society, to the Peabody Academy. The Peabody Academy permanently transferred its historical collections to the Essex Institute, which concentrated its focus on local history, genealogy, and art.

1885 Essex Institute acquired the Daland house for the Phillips Library.

1905 Essex Institute bought Plummer Hall from Salem Athenaeum.

1915 Peabody Academy of Science changed its name to Peabody Museum of Salem, with its focus on maritime history of New England, Pacific and Japanese ethnology, and natural history of Essex county.

1972 National Register of Historic Places approves formation of the Essex Institute Historic District formed within the bounds of the Armory, Essex Street, Washington Square West, and Brown Street.

1992 Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) founded through consolidation of Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute. Within a few years, PEM changed its focus to become an arts and culture museum.   

1997 PEM’s Phillips Library closed for “massive restoration project, including climate control and modern archival storage” (closed 9 months).

2004 reduced hours and limited access to Phillips Library after laying off all but one librarian. At the same time, PEM said it would put “part of its 400,000 volumes and 2 million manuscript papers on the Internet.” Already 26,000 records had been scanned.

2011 Phillips Library is closed during “preservation and renovation work on Plummer Hall and Daland House (expected completion 2013)” (closed 19 months). During part of the closure, PEM exhibited 35 rare items as part of its Unbound, Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM exhibit. 

2013 Phillips Library collection moved to temporary collection center in Peabody, with limited access to the library's resources. 

2015 PEM announced “$20 million renovation and improvement of PEM’s Phillips Library....housed in two noted 1850s architectural treasures, the John Tucker Daland House and Plummer Hall, both of which are being renovated by Schwartz/Silver Architects.” Part of the funds were used to digitally catalog the collections in PhilCat.

2017 Peabody Essex Museum purchased building in Rowley for its new Collections Center.

2018 Phillips Library moved to Collections Center in Rowley (closed Sept. 2017 to mid-June 2018). 

Henry Stiles’ rule #3: Genealogy scams

Clippings from the Townley estate scams

In A Hand-Book of Practical Suggestions for the Use of Students in Genealogy (1899), Henry R. Stiles reminds us that good research may displace firmly held family beliefs. His top three mythbusters: the emigration of the three brothers; the connection to royal bloodlines; and “that somewhere in Great Britain, and in the British Lion’s keeping, there was an immense fortune awaiting its American heirs” (page 15). 

Undoubtedly, get-rich-quick schemes have been around for centuries. In the 19^th century in particular, some gullible Americans believed that by proving their lineage, they would receive an English estate worth gazillions. Ignoring the statute of limitations and the burden of back taxes, clearly there was much legal wrangling to do before they could claim their prize, and that’s where the flimflam man came in.

In the case of the Townley estate, it all started with a letter to the editor to multiple newspapers in the Northeast. Rumors of an inheritance had flourished for 20 years but in the summer of 1845, 200 people who claimed to be members of the family congregated at the court house in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. They read old family records and collected money to send a person to England to investigate the claim. While in England, the investigator kept asking for more information and more money. At some point, the N.J. committee ran out of funds.

However, new claimants continued to fill the pockets of these estate agents. At least two of them were caught. In 1894, James Frazier Jacques and Howell Thomas were convicted in England for obtaining $80,000 under false pretenses and forging documents in another case of Americans in pursuit of the mythical Townley millions.

If your family was caught up in a genealogy scam, be on the lookout for newspaper reports and possible court cases. You may find ledger books, committee meeting notes, correspondence, genealogies, and other materials backing up their claim in archives or in personal collections. Check out local libraries, historical and genealogical societies, WorldCat, and eBay. Also, collect the names of all the other cousins making the same claim. It may turn out that they are related too.

“To the Editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser [from Annapolis, Md.],” Newark Daily Advertiser, 29 Aug. 1845, GenealogyBank.com.

“We shall claim to come in for a share in the Baronial estate of the Townley family,” Newark Daily Advertiser, 10 Oct. 1845, page 2, GenealogyBank.com.

 “Both Convicted. Col. Jacques and Howell Thomas Sentenced for Townley Estate Frauds,” Wheeling Register [Wheeling, WV], 1 Dec. 1894, page 4, GenealogyBank.com.


Thanks to the Genealogy Roadshow on PBS (season 2, episode 3, 2015) for inspiration for this post.

Finding Irish roots through Boston Pilot newspaper ads

From October 1831 to October 1921, The Boston Pilot, the city’s Catholic newspaper, helped people locate their relatives and friends through advertisements in its “Missing Friends” or “Information Wanted” column. Widely circulated throughout the United States and Canada, the weekly newspaper featured ads from recent immigrants seeking family and friends they had lost touch with or who had relocated. The “missing” may have been in the country a few months or many years. With its large readership, the paper served Catholics of different nationalities, with a high percentage of Irish readers. Not all ads had a Boston connection.

These ads not only serve as a replacement for missing ship manifests, they sometimes offer great detail about your ancestors. You may learn the missing person’s birth place or hometown, age, marital status, maiden name, alias, name of ship, departure port, arrival port, travel dates, intended destination, last known residence, usual occupation, employer, physical description, and more. The person seeking information may include relationship and residence as well as a way to contact him/her.

In 1989, the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) published its first volume of The Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the Boston Pilot 1831-1920. The book series concluded with volume 8 in 1999. Several years later, NEHGS offered a CD-ROM version. 

Boston College created the first online database of advertisements for Irish immigrants published in the Boston Pilot. Currently, it does not cover the full run of newspaper issues. Free.

NEHGS’s AmericanAncestors.org web site includes the database under the title: Irish Immigrant Advertisements, 1831-1920 (Search for Missing Friends). Membership required.

Ancestry.com lists the database under the title: Searching for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in The Boston Pilot 1831–1920. Subscription required.

The official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, The Boston Pilot is still published today.

Strategies for finding obituaries in newspaper databases

If you haven’t had much luck finding your ancestors’ obituaries and death notices online, you may need a few strategies to improve your search results.

As an example, at subscription-based GenealogyBank.com, a simple search for Honora Williams (with the death year and state specified) turned up two hits—not for her obituary, but for her husband’s, since he died in the same year. Using a few tricks, another search found the desired obituary and death notice for Honora.

Widen Your View

Search results will list which newspaper editions match your query, but sometimes there’s more than one hit within one issue of the paper. Zoom out in case your search terms (often highlighted in yellow) show up several times on one page or on several pages. Clicking on the results link may bring you to a death notice, and if you’re not looking for more, you may miss an obituary with photo or an article about funeral arrangements on the same newspaper date.

What’s in a Name

At first, try only the surname in the name field. Sometimes people used their initials, middle names, or nicknames throughout their lives, only to pull out their legal or more formal names on odd documents. My Abigail Louise has been recorded as Abgail, Abby, Abbie L., Abby Luie, A. Luisa, Louisie, Louisa, and Louisa A. Her daughter Theresa shows up as Thressa and Tessie, while Marguerite is often misspelled Margaret. Skipping all the alternatives and adding a date may make it easier to search for someone.

If you’re looking for an uncommon first name, like Honora, use that in the name field without a surname.

Try alternate spellings, since names may change over time. Plus, misspellings and mistakes were not uncommon and typos happen, especially when newspaper deadlines are looming. OCR or optical character recognition works best on clean, easy-to-read copy—and some old newspapers are tattered and worn, with ink smudges and bleed-through, producing poor results or even gibberish.

Look for a woman under her husband’s name, even if she’s a widow. Doing a search on “Louis Williams” with the year and state brought up the obituary for Honora. Why would that happen? In the headline she was listed under her husband’s name and her first name, Honora, was mentioned later in the article. That’s because some searches look for a certain number of words or spaces between two joined search terms. In older newspapers, sometimes first names weren’t even mentioned, just a reference to “Mrs. Williams.” 

Use only part of the surname as a search term, in case a name is hyphenated and part of it is carried to the next line. In this example, the “iams” in Williams may produce results, while “Will” may pick up unrelated men named William as well as probate matters.

Narrow by Date or Keyword

If the name produces too many results, add to your search terms. If known, include a year and then update the sort field from “best matches” to date order (“oldest items”). That way, you can go directly to the death month. You may want to include a wider date range, to pick up any probate or estate proceedings that can happen months or even years after a death.

Adding a relative’s name may focus the results. Searching for “Williams” and “Cooney” (her daughter’s surname) found an article on Honora’s probate.

Include more details if you still have too many results. Add a town, city, or street name to your keyword search. (However, in cases of city newspapers, it may be a community or neighborhood—like the North End—mentioned instead.) Add a description or job title, such as attorney/lawyer or pianist.

Location, Location, Location

You may be able to narrow your search to a specific paper, city, or state. Check the database for a list of newspaper titles (see example for GenealogyBank.com). Then click on a title and search. Also, from the homepage of GenealogyBank.com, you can narrow your search by state.

If a newspaper you’re looking for is not online, still look. Some obituaries tell other newspapers to copy the notice. (That also gives you clues to follow up about previous residences or other relatives.) In one case, my ancestor had a brief death notice in his local newspaper. However, a newspaper editor in a nearby town wrote a full obituary a few days later. In it, the editor mentioned reading that death notice and expanded on it with great detail about my ancestor’s life and character. It turns out the editor knew my ancestor well, since he owned a business there. 

Some newspapers pick up sensational or curious stories, even though an event happened hundreds or thousands of miles away, and the person would be unknown otherwise. For example, a 10-year-old boy died by falling between parked railroad cars. This story was picked up in several states, with some of the accounts containing additional information, particularly about the extent of his injuries. 

Skip the Categories

Don’t limit yourself to obituaries and death notices. You may find classified ads and legal notices about settling an estate, a news story about an accident or investigation, marriage notices of children (daughter of the late Honora), or mentions in the society or local news pages.

Review the Collection

Still having no luck? Not everything is online and different newspaper databases have different collections. You may find an obituary through Legacy that is not available at Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, FamilySearch, or other genealogy databases. Also, newspaper collections are always growing, so check back at a later date.

If you know the death date and location, see if a local library will check obituaries in their newspaper collections or request newspapers on microfilm through interlibrary loan.

And, if your search produces no results, remember, not everyone had obituaries or death notices written about them.  

Newspaper obituaries and online memorials

A good obituary serves as a brief synopsis of a person’s life, from birth to death, and everything in between. Genealogical details may include the names of parents, siblings, spouse, children, grandchildren, collateral relatives, and friends; birth and/or marriage dates; cause of death; funeral arrangements and burial location. Some include career, military, and voluntary work highlights; religious attendance; hobbies, favorite things to do, personal characteristics; illnesses, personal difficulties, hardships, and triumphs; and maybe even a photograph. It’s no wonder that obituaries are high on the list of records to search for family history.

Obituaries and Paid Notices

Originally, obituaries were news articles written by newspaper staff about well-known people. Larger newspapers sometimes skipped the details and offered a necrology, a list of names (sometimes with addresses, ages, and/or exact death dates) of people who had died recently. In addition, many newspapers contained paid advertisements, including death notices detailing funeral arrangements or estate matters; tribute notices from fraternal organizations, employers, and others connected with the deceased; memorial notices on the anniversaries of a person’s birth, marriage, death, or special occasion; and thank you notices from families acknowledging special help during difficult times.

These days, unless a person was famous or otherwise newsworthy, it’s more likely that an obituary was written by staff from a funeral home, with details added by family members and friends, before being published in the newspaper. Although these articles read more like staff-written obituaries than brief death notices, they are paid advertisements—another line item for funerary charges. And with the costs of burials, some people have skipped the newspaper fees and tried newer methods of offering tributes to the dead.

Finding Recent Obituaries

Through a Google search you may find obituaries posted on newspaper and funeral home web sites. Obituaries typically date from the time the newspaper or funeral home first decided to post them online. To narrow your search, you also can try ArrangeOnline’s directory of funeral homes. Some funeral directors contribute obituaries to the National Obituary Archive, where families and others are invited to make corrections for free while tributes may be attached to an obituary for a fee.

Legacy.com provides an obituary hosting service for more than 1,500 newspapers online. Most recent obituaries are available for free, while older obituaries may be viewed for a small fee. Use the ObitFinder search engine or have ObitMessenger deliver alerts to your email.

Finding Historical Obituaries

GenealogyBank, Newspapers.com, and other genealogy sites offer access to obituaries and other newspaper articles on a subscription basis. Before you subscribe, check their location and date ranges for areas that interest you.

This year, FamilySearch.org—the largest genealogy organization in the world—started a new initiative to index and post historical obituaries online for free. You can search, volunteer to index, or add a new obituary.

If you have a death date and location, some public libraries will check for obituaries in their newspaper collections. 

Online Memorials

Numerous web sites exist for posting public and private online memorials. Some are here today, gone tomorrow—dependent on one-time or annual maintenance fees, online candle sales, and memorial gifts, all of which may not generate enough income to keep a web site active. Other sites, such as Facebook and Fold3 (a subscription-based genealogy web site), are more stable, since memorial pages are not their primary focus and revenue stream. Some online tributes show up on search engine results; to find others, check Cyndi’s List for online memorials.  

Collateral genealogy: A case study

Tucked away in an 1867 Blackfriars edition of Shakespeare’s complete works, I discovered an old photograph of a man holding a young child. The book’s provenance, the photo’s time period, and the man’s cheekbones suggest that he could be grand-uncle John. Since John died in 1941, my aunt didn’t remember anything about him except that he drowned. Her cousin Florence’s neatly drawn family chart, however, indicated that John had married Mae and had a son William who died as an infant.

Over the years I have pieced together some of John’s life, except his marriage. Mae was only a name, no details, not even dates. I decided to spend a few hours online, using Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, to see how much I could learn about grand-uncle John’s mysterious wife and marriage.

The first step was to find a marriage certificate at FamilySearch.org. In 1912, a few days shy of his 24th birthday, John married 17-year-old “Mary” in a Catholic church in his hometown. With her parents’ full names and her approximate birth year, I tried to find Mary’s birth certificate, but had no luck. The details were not specific enough, since I didn’t know where she was born. But I did find her parents’ marriage record in Boston, showing John S. was from western Massachusetts while Bridget was an immigrant from Ireland. Could it be the same family?

Then I found an Ancestry.com Member Tree with a “Mary Agnes” born in 1895 to a John and Bridget. Mary Agnes and her siblings have no data beyond the 1900 and 1910 census—except for the youngest sister who marries into the main branch of the poster’s family tree. The mother, Bridget, didn’t have a maiden name in the tree, but the attached 1910 census, two years before John and Mae marry, is in the correct town. I think I have a match.

With the first flush of success, I excitedly send an email to the tree poster, asking if she has more details on Mary Agnes. I mention that I think she married my grand-uncle. But the poster only says, “No, sorry I don’t. Good luck.”

Making Sense of the Census

I follow my hunch that Mae and Mary Agnes are one and the same, figuring I would track down the clues from Mary Agnes’ family in the censuses until either the data proved or disproved that she married my John. 

The 1900 census shows Mary Agnes’ father John was born in Massachusetts, her mother Bridget in Ireland, agreeing with the Boston marriage certificate. Her three older brothers were born in Rhode Island, while Mary Agnes and her younger sister were born in Connecticut. Since the 1900 census asked for month and year of birth, I know Mary Agnes was born in December of 1895. Although the earliest vital records for Connecticut start in the 1630s, statewide registration started in 1897 (two years after Mary Agnes’ birth) and was not fully implemented until 1915. It’s possible that Mary Agnes and her younger sister were born in the same Connecticut town where they are listed in the 1900 census.

By 1910, Mary Agnes is 15 and living in the same New Jersey neighborhood where she’ll marry her future husband two years later. By 1920, I don’t find John and Mae in the census. (My family, I already know, evaded the census taker that year. I have searched page by page and tried all sorts of name configurations—but only John’s married sister shows up.) In the 1930 census, John is living with his parents, married but with no wife listed in the household. At this point, I’m suspecting cousin Florence’s inkling of a divorce in the family may be correct.

Tracking the Collateral Lines

Since I couldn’t find Mary Agnes in the 1920 and 1930 censuses, I started to track down her siblings, one by one. From the 1900 census, I knew the three older brothers’ birth months and years, and all three were born in Rhode Island. It wasn’t difficult finding their draft registration cards—all were born in Pawtucket, but now I had street addresses and occupations.

At Ancestry.com, I do a general search on oldest brother John, and find a Michigan death and burial index that not only matches his birth date but agrees with the parents’ names on Mary’s 1912 marriage certificate. I trace him through the censuses, unsuccessfully search for a marriage or obituary, and find no sign of a sister Mary.

So I continue with the next brother. I find Thomas and his wife, in Pennsylvania, living with his widowed mother Bridget and sister “May,” age 24, single (and using maiden name) in the 1920 census. By 1930, Bridget is living with her third son Thomas in the same town where John and Mae married, but Mae is missing.

Widening the Search

Using her birth year, birth place, and parents’ names in the Ancestry.com search engine, I come across a Mary Agnes who died in 1982 in California. Could it be my John’s wife remarried? I couldn’t find an obituary and I only had the city and a new last name as found on the California Death Indexes and Social Security Death Indexes. But it was worth investigating.

On the 1940 California census, I found a Mary Agnes with her husband Frank, two sons, and Irish-born mother Bridget—all the details fit, including her 1895 birth in Connecticut. But here was the clincher: Mary and her family lived in Long Beach in 1935, but her mother Bridget lived in New Jersey in 1935, in the same town where daughter Mae married my John 23 years before.

Narrowing a Time Frame

Not surprisingly, I didn’t find a divorce record for John and Mae online. Nor did I find a marriage record for Mae and her second husband Frank. Checking the city directories, published every two years, I followed both John and Mae’s families from 1911 to 1931. In 1917, “Mrs. John” is listed separately from John, who lived a few blocks away. In the 1919 directory, his mother-in-law “Bridget, wid[ow of] John” removed to another city 80 miles away, probably taking Mae with her. Based on the 1940 census, Frank and Mary Agnes’ son was born in 1932 in the same state where Mae lived with her brother in 1920. So she probably didn’t return to the old neighborhood. Mae packed up her bags and headed west.

And as for baby William in cousin Florence’s family tree? Well, there’s only so much research you can do online before needing to visit record repositories and relatives.

For privacy reasons, no surnames were used in this case study. All of the data mentioned has been cited in my database. Ancestry.com is a subscription-based web site while FamilySearch.org offers free access to genealogy records.

Combining genealogy with genetic research

Courtesy of Jcmorin

Sitting down with a genetic counselor is much like speaking to a genealogist with a medical degree. After all, a genetic counselor works  with charts that resemble pedigrees and family trees, though without names, just squares for males and circles for females, with lines connecting relationships. Genetic counselors can help map out the likelihood of being a carrier or being infected by certain inherited traits and diseases.

In much the same way, DNA research has shown specific markers carry a higher probability of certain inherited diseases. For example, actress Angelina Jolie learned she had the BRCA1 gene, making her at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Coupled with her family’s history of cancer, Jolie opted for a preventive double mastectomy. (See "My Medical Choice," New York Times, 14 May 2013.)

In another case, Janine Jagger, Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia, had several years of abdominal pain and fevers with no known cause. Another doctor suggested she could have familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), which is typically found in people of Middle Eastern descent—though none appear on Jagger's known family tree. Oddly enough, she discovered in an old newspaper that one of her ancestors, Captain William Smith Young (b. 1829), was "attacked with fever and ague to which he is subject." He was a steamboat captain of the ill-fated Narragansett, which hit another steamboat in 1880. The crash, which made front-page news across the country, caused the deaths of 50 passengers. During the formal inquiry, the captain's testimony was reported verbatim in the New York Times, including the passage that he was unable to attend a court appearance due to symptoms similar to Jagger's. Since finding the newspaper account, she has connected to other Young descendants and found a pattern of FMF. (See "All I Want for Ramadan Is My Own Mutation," Huffington Post, 8 November 2013.)

So, when you’re typing data into your genealogy database, don’t overlook the medical fields such as cause of death, hospitalization, or illness. Seeing patterns recorded in death certificates, medical reports, and obituaries or having first-hand knowledge or hearing family stories of a medical nature may increase your awareness of risk factors and prevention for possible diseases, such as certain cancers, heart disease, substance abuse, diabetes, and depression.

You may not need a genetic counselor, but if you're like me, you'll bring your family tree charts to your doctor to discuss your deep medical history. Genealogy not only keeps your mind busy, it can help you live longer and better.

Finding romance in genealogy

Do you know your parents’ or grandparents’ love story? How they met and where and when? Did they ever take you on side trips to show you the memorable places and events in their lives, such as where they went on a first date, where they became engaged, where they were married, where they first lived as newlyweds?

To me, it’s a mystery how my parents met, since my father was a few years older and they attended high schools in different towns. Although I don’t know the stories, I have snapshots and memorabilia from those early days, lovingly placed in a scrapbook my mother made. The Broadway playbills, the cocktail napkins from jazz clubs, the movie tickets, even a bar of soap from their honeymoon hotel—all of these cherished items create almost a timeline of their first years together. Flipping through the pages gives me a totally romantic, even glamorous vision of their lives, before children came into the picture.

Maybe you don’t have a scrapbook that tells the story. But if you cannot ask the actual couple—or the people who knew them—look for other sources. Maybe you’ll find a stack of Valentine’s Day, holiday, anniversary, or birthday cards wrapped in a ribbon. Or, better yet, old letters. John Adams (1735-1826) and his wife Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818) wrote more than a thousand letters to each other. You can read them on the Massachusetts Historical Society web site. Even if you’re not related to the president’s family, you can glean much about family life, politics, history, and amour of the times.

If you or your relatives don’t possess the actual pages, you can look for letters, day books, journals, diaries, postcards, photographs, ephemera—even oral histories—at libraries, historical societies, museums, private collections, and even eBay.

Sometimes, romantic or familial thoughts come when envelopes and stationary are not available. One of my collateral great greats wrote a short family history in his old account book, the text of which appeared in the History of the Town of New Marlborough, Massachusetts by Harry D. Sisson (1937). Apparently, in 1859 his aunt was visiting from Michigan and Noah Gibson wanted to scribble her stories somewhere handy before he forgot. Unfortunately, Aunt Alice gave a romantic twist to the family history, turning my 6th great grandfather into an immigrant sea captain (two things he was not) and his son into a minuteman tragically dying at the Battle of Lexington (he died a few years earlier, in 1757 to be exact).

Don’t overlook the possibility that someone published something your ancestors wrote. For instance, when Judge Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) wrote in his diaries, he had no idea people would be reading them hundreds of years later. His writings say much about his love for his family and the little details that made up their everyday life. As a widower, he even shared in his diary his attempts to woo a lady—and her eventual rejection.

People don’t have to be famous to be published either. Soldiers from Massachusetts who fought in the Civil War often had their letters to parents, siblings, sweethearts, and wives published in the local newspaper, The Quincy Patriot. Numerous soldier letters have been printed or are available online.

Speaking of newspapers, you may find a treasure trove of love stories, from golden anniversary articles, mentions in the local gossip column, and obituaries to letters, poetry, and stories. And if you descend from high school or college sweethearts, look for yearbooks and alumni publications.

Physicians in the family

Dr. John Warren

What kinds of records can you find if your ancestor was in the medical profession?

In many ways, physicians are public figures, well-known in their communities. You'll find them listed in city directories, featured in town histories (the so-called mug books), and mourned in their obituaries. They may have advertised their services in local newspapers, published scholarly articles on their research or medical cases (perhaps in the New England Journal of Medicine, first published in 1812), lectured at medical schools, or kept detailed journals. Their medical records may have been deposited in archives, from local historical and genealogical societies and museums to medical associations, hospitals, and universities.

Finding the Degree

Not all doctors, nurses, midwives, and others in the medical profession attended medical schools. Some were apprentices, sometimes taking over their mentors' practices. Over time, the barbers and bonesetters became degreed medical professionals.

Massachusetts is home to four medical schools: Harvard Medical School, founded in 1782; New England Female Medical College, founded in 1848, which became Boston University School of Medicine in 1873; Tufts University School of Medicine, founded in 1893; and University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, founded in 1962. Look for school histories, alumni directories, yearbooks, reunion records, and archival holdings. 

AMA Directory

The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1847. At the turn of the 20th century, the AMA started to collect information on physicians nationwide, whether or not they were AMA members, and compiled its first American Medical Directory in 1906. Information on each doctor was kept on 4 x 6” index cards until 1970, when the AMA started to use a computer database to track doctors instead. The cards of physicians who died prior to 1970, now called the AMA Deceased Physicians Masterfile, became part of the AMA Archives. In 1993, the AMA printed the two-volume Directory of Deceased American Physicians 1804-1929, with biographical profiles. It is available as part of a paid subscription on Ancestry.com. A finding aid for the Masterfile is available online, to help you find doctors who died between 1906-1969 within the 87.5 linear feet of original documents. FamilySearch has images online. 

Finding Boston probate records

John Gibson 1721 probate packet

Probate records can add more to your genealogy than heirs and possibly death dates; it can add stories and intrigue.

At the Massachusetts Archives, I held the actual probate papers for my seventh great grandfather. He died intestate (without a will), probably of smallpox which was epidemic in Boston at the time (1721). At first, I wasn't sure I had the correct ancestor as I paged through papers of administration, inventory lists, receipts and expenses. And then I discovered a letter to the court from the orphaned children's uncle, explaining how my ancestor sent his children to Ipswich to live with their uncle right before his own death. The probate packet didn't give me the names of the children, but it provided enough details to piece together his life and circumstances.

While looking for an obituary in a newspaper, I unexpectedly found a one-liner mentioning the probate of my third great grandmother's estate. I had pictured her as a poor, illiterate immigrant, so "estate" sounded too big of a word for her, really. When I received the probate papers, however, I discovered my ancestor had $314.72 deposited in the bank. She had no real estate or personal property to speak of, just cash in a bank. Curious. The details are scant, but at least the bare-bones document ties together three previously presumed-related siblings. 

As you can see, probate records can provide valuable information to add to your family history. 

Finding Probate Records

For early records, visit the Massachusetts Archives. 

Check the online Massachusetts Archives Collections (1629-1799), also known as the Felt Collection. The online database provides name, location, and subject access to 18 volumes. In person, you also can check the card catalog, which covers a quarter of this 328-volume collection. 

Two notable compilations with probate data are the Great Migration series and Annie Haven Thwing's index, both available from the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Look for Index to the probate records of the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts: from the year 1636 to and including the year 1893, prepared under the supervision of Elijah George. You'll find Volume 1: A to F, Volume 2: G to O, and Volume 3: P to Z online, along with John T. Hassam's Registers of probate for the county of Suffolk,Massachusetts, 1639-1799.

For later records, contact the Suffolk Probate and Family Court. 

October is family history month

Numerous U.S. states recognize October as Family History Month. Plan ahead before Thanksgiving and the winter holidays give you ample opportunities to interview family members, share stories, and identify photographs together. Here are some guidelines to help you make the most of your time.

1. If you're new to genealogical research, learn the basics before you visit Great Aunt Bertha. Bring along a pedigree chart and family group records to put your research in perspective and to provide an overview of vital record facts.

2. Create a family photo book to give visual prompts to potential storytellers. You may even want to purchase a handheld scanner to collect images from relatives. Once you've collected a bunch of digital images, organize the photos in such a way that you know the subjects, the time period, and who you scanned the images from.

3. Do you have any questions based on details from birth, marriage, and death records you've found, like why were those specific witnesses chosen to sign the marriage certificate? Or what's the relationship between the deceased and the death certificate's informant? Write down your list of questions and bring along copies of the vital records for backup.

4.  Do you have newspaper clippings with fascinating tidbits of sports records, school achievements, injuries and accidents, social outings, court proceedings, wedding announcements, retirement parties, obituaries, church meetings, reunions, and the like? Bring copies to share so you can get the full story.

5. Have you found your family on the 1940 census? Although copying the census pages may be unwieldy, consider bringing along your laptop with the census images already saved. People like to see themselves in historical records. You could learn about the home they lived in, who lived with them, what jobs they had, who the neighbors were, and more. 

6. Did your relatives live through big, historical events like President Kennedy's assassination or the Blizzard of 1978? Ask them what they remember of the event to put their lives in historical perspective. 

7. Have you found a troubling pattern of illnesses and causes of death? Consider putting together a family health pedigree and asking your family for input. 

Make the most of your family time. Be prepared. Know what you want to learn. Bring images and records to serve as prompts. See where the path leads. You may be surprised. 

Newspapers: Beyond birth notices, wedding announcements, and obituaries

Newspapers may provide stories of your ancestors—and clues to their descendants—even long after they have died.

The first newspaper in the 13 Colonies was published in 1690 and was quickly suppressed by the government after one edition. In 1704, the Boston News-Letter started a successful 74-year run reporting the news.

Although we don’t have a day-by-day newspaper account of the 1692 Salem witch trials, we do have eyewitness reports and court records that have been published. But since the trials have captured the American psyche for centuries, it’s not surprising that we find newspaper stories either reminding us of the past or offering new information about the event. 

Let’s use one of the more famous victims of the Salem witch trials as an example. Rebecca Nurse was one of the very few accused witches who was found not guilty at her jury trial on 30 June 1692. But when the court read the verdict, the afflicted girls renewed their fits and outcries against the 71-year-old Nurse, causing the jury to reverse their opinion. Even petitions signed by prominent society members and a reprieve from Governor Phips could not stop the escalating proceedings of the Court of Oyer & Terminer. On 19 July 1692, Nurse was hanged.

Rebecca Nurse homestead (2014)

On 19 July 1883, the Boston Daily Advertiser reported on the first reunion of the descendants of Rebecca Nurse at her old homestead located on Pine street in current-day Danvers, Massachusetts, previously Salem Village. Nearly 200 people attended, most who were lineal descendants of Francis and Rebecca Nurse, who had eight children. 

The descendants included “representatives of the Miles family of Worcester; the Tapleys and Putnams of Danvers; the Hayes family of Farmington, NH; the Putnams of Lynn; the Prince family of Danvers; the Newhalls of Peabody; the Browns of Lynn; a branch of the Chase family of Philadelphia; the Wiggins family of Providence; the Needhams of Peabody; the Maynards of Shrewsbury; the Evans family of Springfield; the Forbes family of Westboro; and branches of the Nourse family of Arlington, Berlin, Bolton, Lexington, Leonminster, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Salem.” This is a genealogy goldmine!

Other reunions were reported in various papers, including the 1885 placement of the Rebecca Nurse monument in the Nurse-Putnam burial grounds at her old homestead.

40 Supporters

On 31 July 1892, the New York Times reported that the Nurse Monument Association had commemorated the “brave defense of 40 neighbors and friends of Rebecca Nurse, who risked their lives to put on record their testimony in her favor” by erecting a granite tablet in their honor. It was placed near the 1885 memorial to Rebecca Nurse in the burial grounds at her old homestead in Danvers. The article recalls how Joseph Putnam—and no doubt the others who came to Nurse’s defense—truly put their lives on the line by signing the petition.

The 40 neighbors and friends listed on the granite tablet were Nathaniel Putnam, Israel Porter, Elizabeth Porter, Edward Bishop, Hannah Bishop, Joshua Rea, Sarah Rea, Sarah Leach, Samuel Abbey, Hepzibah Rea, Daniel Andrew, Sarah Andrew, Daniel Rea, Sarah Putnam, Jonathan Putname, Lydia Putnam, John Putnam, Rebecca Putnam, Joseph Hutchinson, Lydia Hutchinson, William Osburn, Hannah Osburn, Joseph Holton, Sarah Holton, Benjamin Putnam, Sarah Putnam, Job Swinnerton, Esther Swinnerton, Walter Phillips, Nathaniel Felton, Margaret Phillips, Tabitha Phillips, Joseph Houlton, Samuel Endicott, Elizabeth Buxton, Samuel Osborn, Isaac Cook, Elizabeth Cook, Joseph Herrick, and Joseph Putnam.

Conclusion

Even though the above examples are of a well-known historical person, it shows you why it’s important to check newspaper resources for your ancestors—even after they have died. You may find articles written about family reunions and commemorating special events. A list of descendants who attended certainly can help you fill in your family tree.

Sources

Boston Daily Advertiser, “Rebekah Nurse: Gathering of the Descendants of the 'Witch' of 1692 at Salem Village—Tribute to Her Memory,” 19 July 1883. Available on GenealogyBank (fee).

New York Times, "Worthy Witch Memorial," 31 July 1892.

Death in all its details

Obituaries and death records often provide unexpected details that require further research.

Obituaries often give details about relationships, education, memberships, occupations, and even interests, but some gloss over death itself, with words like “after a lingering illness” or “suddenly.” Sometimes you can tell the cause of death by “in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to” a specific charity, such as a cancer foundation or a local hospice.

In some cases, cause of death is the headline, such as “Charlton Girl Dies of Spinal Meningitis.” Interestingly, when I contacted the cemetery for information on the girl’s family plot, I was given an official burial (or removal) permit that notes the cause of death was acute mastoiditis instead. The nine-year-old girl had been at the hospital for two months.

Fifteen years later, the girl's mother died in Connecticut—according to the removal, transit, and burial permit—of “compound fracture skull, laceration of brain (gunshot wound – suicide).” She was 42 and apparently remarried, though her gravestone shows her first husband’s surname. No obituary was written, but there must be police reports that I haven’t tracked down yet.

Over the last few weeks, I have been indexing death records for the FamilySearch Indexing project. Since cause of death is not needed for indexing, I don’t always look at the physician’s notes. However, a few were memorable.

• A 23-year-old married man died at the local drive-in theater of a severed spinal cord. How? He died of a gunshot wound.
• A 27-year-old man died of cancer, after suffering from the disease for seven years. At his young age, he already was a widower.
• In 1937, two men died in a highway car crash. One died of a punctured lung, though the physician also noted he had “broken legs, etc.” The other died of shock, having broken both arms and legs.

Imagine if these were your relatives. You’d be digging into the newspaper accounts, police inquest reports, and probate records, trying to fill in the blanks. And, oh my, what stories would you find?!

Historical perspective: Putting your ancestors' lives in context

Oftentimes, as genealogists we tend to focus on births, marriages, and deaths. But to see the bigger picture, we need to consider what was happening in the community and the world around them to put our ancestors’ lives in context.

One way to do this is to create a timeline of family events and match it with historic events. That way, you can determine what outside factors may have influenced your ancestors’ lives, from wars, pirates, strikes, politics, religious revivals, and murders to fires, weather, flu epidemics, famines, and other major catastrophes.

For instance, my ancestors, a husband and a wife in their late 30s, died in 1721. From reviewing historic events of the time period, I finally figured out that they may have died in the smallpox epidemic that was ravaging Boston. After all, a few months prior to their deaths, they sent their children to live with relatives in Essex county, Massachusetts.

Other relatives lived in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892 when Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father and stepmother. Did they know the Bordens? Maybe not. But how closely did they follow that sensational news? At the time, one of my relatives was a five-year-old boy, and he grew up to be a policeman. I sometimes wonder if the murders influenced his chosen career and how much inside information he knew from working at the police station.

Below, I’ve included some Massachusetts events randomly collected from the MassMoments web site. Hopefully, a few of them will make you consider how an event may have affected your ancestors’ lives. What did they live through? How may that event have influenced their lives?

Learning about the times they lived in may give you a new perspective into your ancestors’ lives. It may even give your family history research new clues to follow.

1620: Pilgrims and strangers land in Plymouth
1630: Puritans arrive in Boston
1636: Harvard College founded
1658: Quakers outlawed in Plymouth
1659: Christmas celebrations outlawed
1675: King Philip’s War begins
1690: first newspaper published in the Colonies
1692: Salem witch trials
1717: pirate ship the Whydah sinks off Cape Cod
1721: smallpox epidemic in Boston
1733: Boston masons organize first Grand Lodge in America
1746: Abenaki raid on Deerfield
1760: Great Fire of 1760, Boston
1765: Stamp Act protests
1770: Boston Massacre
1775: American Revolution begins in Lexington
1797: USS Constitution launched
1806: first African-American meeting house opened
1812: War of 1812 begins
1820: Maine becomes own state, apart from Massachusetts
1821: Massachusetts General Hospital admits first patient
1837: Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary opens
1844: Millerites await end of the world on October 22
1848: Boston’s first municipal water system completed
1850: first national women’s rights convention held in Worcester
1860: Lynn shoeworkers strike
1861: Massachusetts volunteers join in the Civil War
1872: Great Fire of Boston
1888: blizzard of 1888
1892: Andrew and Abby Borden murdered in Fall River
1897: Boston opens the nation’s first subway system
1903: Marconi relays first transcontinental radio message from Wellfleet
1912: Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence
1919: Great Molasses Flood in Boston
1926: construction of Quabbin Reservoir begins; towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott disappear
1927: execution of Sacco & Vanzetti
1938: hurricane ravages New England
1962: Boston Strangler killings
1978: Blizzard of 1978
2004: Red Sox win World Series

Best newspaper resources for genealogy

The first newspaper in Colonial America was Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, published in Boston on 25 September 1690. After one issue, the government ordered the paper to be suppressed and all copies destroyed. From that point on, all such printed materials required a license. The second newspaper, The Boston News-Letter, started publication in 1704 and successfully ran for 74 years. Unlike one-page broadsides, these newspapers typically consisted of four pages and offered local and British news, events, and advertisements. 

Newspapers are a treasure trove for genealogists. We search them mainly for birth notices, wedding announcements, and obituaries. But they’re also useful for mentioning tidbits such as a distant relative visiting family in town; participation in local society events; accidents and injuries; local political news; shipping news; society pages; opinion pieces and letters to the editor; and much more. Plus, advertisements and legal notices may concern our ancestors’ businesses, property, and estate affairs.

Newspapers are historical snapshots worth saving. In fact, the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress have funded the United States Newspaper Program to collect and preserve newspapers from all 50 states. Visit the site to find out which newspapers have been microfilmed.

In addition to print, most newspapers today have an online version available. Like the print edition, online newspapers often are divided into sections (local, national, world news; business, finance; sports; arts & entertainment, etc.). The bonus with the online version, however, is the search engine—and access to earlier editions. 

Local Access

The Boston Globe has a subscription-only site as well as a free site, with many stories being archived (and available for a fee) after the first month of publication. Through my local library, I can access Proquest’s Historical Newspapers: Boston Globe 1872-1979 and Massachusetts Newsstand: Boston Globe 1980 to current.

Check with your local public library to see if it offers in-library or home access to newspaper collections. My local library offers free home access to the back issues of my local newspaper, Gale newspaper collections,  the Boston Globe, and the New York Times. When I was doing research for my neighbor, for example, I learned I had access to the Lowell Sun from 2004 to current through my local library. After that, I needed to visit the Pollard Public Library in Lowell, Massachusetts, for library-access-only of The Sun online 1879-1977 and on microfilm.  

Newspaper Web Sites

Before subscribing to commercial web sites for newspaper access, check to see if the site covers the regions, newspaper titles, and publication dates you need.

19th Century U.S. Newspapers: 1.7 million pages from hundreds of newspapers. (Available through New England Historic Genealogical Society and Godfrey Memorial Library memberships; free at FamilySearch Centers.)

Ancestry.com: Ancestry has so many different kinds of records. You need to “Search all records,” type in person’s first and last name, then narrow your search by category to get at “Newspapers & Publications.” You also can use the Card Catalog to search Newspapers & Publications by title or keyword and filter by location and/or date. Ancestry also has the United States Obituary Collection and Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, and Death Announcements 1851-2003 that collect stories from eight major U.S. newspapers. (Subscription.)

Chronicling America: Search select U.S. newspapers from 1836 to 1922. (Free.)

Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876: More than one million pages. (Available onsite at New England Historic Genealogical Society and Godfrey Memorial Library.)

FamilySearch: You can use a filter to find obituary collections, pick the area of interest, and search from there. You also can “create, preserve, and share an obituary for a loved one” or search what others have written. (Free.)

Findmypast: Collection includes U.S., Canadian, British, Irish, and World (China, Denmark, France, Germany, South Africa, Jamaica, Virgin Islands, Panama) newspapers and PERiodical Source Index (with some links to full articles) as well family history records. (Subscription or pay-as-you-go plan.)

Fold3: Mostly a military web site, but includes some newspapers. (Subscription, some free material.)

GenealogyBank: Between Historical Newspapers 1690-2007 and Newspaper Obituaries 1977 to Present, GenealogyBank offers 5,850-plus different newspaper titles. (Subscription.)

Google News is free to search, with sometimes a fee to view an article.

Legacy has recent obituaries from newspapers and funeral homes nationwide on its site. It also is the power behind the search engine for many newspaper obituary collections. Recent obituaries and guest books are free; archived ones cost a nominal fee. Legacy also branched out into public notices and celebrations (such as weddings).

Newspaper Archive: Billed as “the world’s largest online newspaper archive.” (Subscription.)

Newspapers.com: “3,500 newspapers from the 1700s to 2000s”; owned by Ancestry.com. (Subscription.)

New York Times Archive: For 1851-1923 and 1987-present, you can view up to 20 articles a month, but for 1924-1986, you pay per article. Check to see if your local library has access. 

Paper of Record: Canadian, U.S., and other countries. (Subscription.)

ProQuest Archiver: 130 newspapers from U.S., Canada, U.K., and Israel. Check to see if your local library has access; if not, pay by article or with a 24-hour pass.

Small Town Papers Collection offers Google search and browsing by issue for 45 states from 1865 to present. (Free.)

WorldVitalRecords contains two newspaper collections: Newspaper Archive and Small Town Papers Collection. (Subscription.)

Special Projects

Historians, libraries, and genealogists have created special newspaper collections—and some are offering online access. The Center for Lowell History has indexes to birth, marriage and death notices published in Lowell, Massachusetts, newspapers since 1865. The Boston Public Library has an index for obituaries that appeared in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, currently available from 1953 to 2010. The Brooklyn Public Library in New York has digitized 147,000 pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, making the years 1841 to 1902 searchable by date or keywords.

Individuals and groups have abstracted or compiled newspaper clippings and obituaries. Some of the notable ones can be found on Newspaper Abstracts: Finding Our Ancestors in the News, the Olden Times: Historic Newspapers Online, and an index at Obituary Daily Times. You also may find obituaries and other newspaper clippings on county pages or in the archives of the USGenWeb project or on genealogy-specific message boards.