Database News

When Rhode Island Roots began publication in 1975, the publication served both as a newsletter for the newly formed Rhode Island Genealogical Society (RIGS) and as an aid to careful genealogical research. While it was short and unsophisticated in design, Roots was a serious publication assembled by people with considerable genealogical experience. This update includes volumes 11-15, publication years 1985-1989, and adds more than 21,000 records to this collection. 

Each issue of the quarterly journal, now 52 pages, features at least one compiled genealogy along with Bible records, transcriptions of original sources, book reviews, and studies of the genealogical implications of historical events. Indices of land and Notarial records and petitions to the General Assembly, transcriptions of estimates of ratable estate, gravestones, and early census records all provide invaluable clues to Rhode Island genealogy. The authors include well-known genealogists as well as RIGS members with stories of their own families to tell. 

Other Rhode Island databases available through our digital collections include Rhode Island Vital Records, 1636-1850; Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Database Index; and Members of the Artillery Company of Newport, Rhode Island.

If you have any questions about this, or any other database on the AmericanAncestors.org website, please contact us at webmaster@nehgs.org.

Search Rhode Island Roots.

 We continue with our ongoing series of family sketches featured in The Settlers of the Beekman Patent, Frank J. Doherty's multi-volume study. The Settlers of the Beekman Patent contains data on over thirteen hundred families who settled in the Beekman Patent, an original land grant given to Col. Henry Beekman in 1697 by the English Crown and the second largest patent in present-day Dutchess County, New York. Many emigrants from New England lived in and passed through the Beekman Patent on their way west. Others, such as the Palatines and Quakers (almost all from New England), were early settlers and remained for several generations or more.

Compiler and author Frank J. Doherty has researched the settlers of the Beekman Patent for over thirty years and is considered the foremost expert on these families. He began his research after he purchased property in the town of LaGrange in Dutchess County and became interested in the history of the area. His research includes all eighteenth-century records from Dutchess County courts, probate, cemeteries, churches, stores, leases, tax lists, military, census, and other documents pertaining to the area.

The eighth volume, published in 2005, includes family sketches pertaining to the following surnames: Lee, Lent, Leonard, LeRoy, Lester, Lewis, Light, Lightheart, Linsey, Lobdell, Lockwood, Losee, Lossing, Lovejoy, Loveless, Luckey, Lyon, Mabie, Mace, Macomber, Macy, Maguire, Mainger, Mallory, Maloney, Mancius, Mandigo, Manter, Mentor, Marble, Marcy, Marks, Marsh, Marshall, Martin, Martling, Marvill, Masten, Matthews, McAuley, McCarty, McCarthy, McClave, McCollum, McCord, McCready, McDaniel, McDonald, McDougal, McDowell, McIntire, McLees, McNeal, McPherson, McWilliams, Mead, Meloy, Merrick, Merrihew, Merritt, Meyer, Myers, Miles, Milk, Millard, Miller, and Millington. The inclusion of this volume adds more than 32,000 individual name entries to this database.

Hard copies of The Settlers of the Beekman Patent are available through our bookstore, and you can find additional information about this resource here.

Other New York databases available through our digital collections include First Settlers of Albany County from 1630 to 1800, First Settlers of Schenectady from 1662 to 1800, and New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.

If you have questions about this or any other database, you may contact us at webmaster@nehgs.org.

Search The Settlers of the Beekman Patent

Newly added to Connecticut Vital Records to 1870 (The Barbour Collection): Hartland (1761–1848), Norfolk (1758–1850), Redding (1767–1852), and Salisbury (1741–1846). Together, these towns add more than 11,000 records to this database.

In 2003, NEHGS released the first edition of this searchable database on NewEnglandAncestors.org. In 2010, the same database content was moved to AmericanAncestors.org when that website became the new website of NEHGS. In the past year, our volunteer team has been diligently working to re-index the collection, which contains 187,000 name records and 16,600 page images. In addition, many page images which were formerly unavailable on the website have been rescanned and added to the collection. This historic collection was detailed in an article by Michael J. Leclerc in the Spring 2003 issue of New England Ancestors magazine. That article is available at AmericanAncestors.org, here. In 1979, NEHGS published an Index and Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Massachusetts and Maine 1798 Tax. Excerpts from that guide, which explains the collection content and the towns it covers, is available here.

Other tax record database collections include Rochester, NH: Tax Lists for 1790 and 1815; Tax List of New Milford, Connecticut, 1756; and Tax List of Boston, 1831.

If you have questions about this or any other database collection offered through our website, you may contact us at webmaster@nehgs.org

Search the Massachusetts and Maine 1798 Direct Tax database.

 The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record is the premier genealogical journal devoted to scholarship on families residing in New York State and surrounding areas. Published quarterly since 1870 by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, the Record features compiled genealogies and transcriptions of Bible records, census records, church registers, newspaper extracts, muster rolls, wills and deeds, and proceedings of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

This week, we have added volumes 31-35, containing more than 47,000 additional name records. The database currently contains volumes 1 through 35, publication years 1870 to 1904. In total, this database contains over 228,000 records. Future volumes will be added periodically.

Other New York databases include: New York: Abstracts of Wills, Admins. and Guardianships, 1787-1835; New York: Long Island Cemetery Inscriptions, 1652-1910; and New York: Albany County Deeds, 1630-1894. 

If you have any questions about this, or any other database on the AmericanAncestors.org website, please contact us at webmaster@nehgs.org.

Search The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record

This Great Migration database, covering surnames beginning with T through Y, is the last of seven volumes in a series documenting the watershed years of 1634 and 1635. It traces families and individuals immigrating to New England during those two years – a time of rapid migration and settlement.

Each entry for a featured individual includes:

• Place of origin, if known

• Date and ship on which they arrived in New England, if known

• Earliest known record of the individual or family

• First residence and subsequent residences, when known

• Return trips to their country of origin, whether temporary or permanent

• Bibliographical information such as birth, death, marriage(s), children, and other important family relationships, church memberships, and civil and military offices held.

The full introduction to this volume is available for download as a pdf file.  The introduction includes a description of the methodology used to create the sketches as well as thorough descriptions of the sources used. 

This database provides an index to the sketches of 203 Great Migration individuals, and the 6,978 name references contained within those sketches.  The images of the original book pages are available from the search results pages.

Our bookstore also offers hard copies of The Great Migration series and other related materials.

Search The Great Migration, Vol. 7, T-Y.

Newly added to Connecticut Vital Records to 1870 (The Barbour Collection): Cornwall (1740-1854), Kent (1739-1852), Sharon (1739-1865) and Torrington (1740-1850), birth, marriage, and death records. These towns add more than 15,000 records to this database collection.