Founded in 1845, NEHGS is the country's leading resource for family history research. We help build knowledge, skills, and understanding of your family and its place in history. Today we provide more than 25,000 members worldwide with access to some of the most important and valuable genealogical resources anywhere. Whether your family came to this country in the 17th century or the 20th century, NEHGS offers access to an incredible collection of primary materials and other resources that can make your research productive and rewarding.
Our Research Center
Our 8-story research center, located in downtown Boston, is one of the premier genealogy centers in the country, housing more than 200,000 books, 100,000 microforms, and more than 2 million manuscripts and family papers. In total, there are more than 20 million documents, artifacts, records, diaries, journals, books, photographs, family papers, bibles, and other items dating back more than four centuries. This incredible collection offers a wealth of information that is simply not available anywhere else
Our Staff
Our staff of experts is available in a number of ways to help you with any challenges, questions, or ‘brick walls’ you may have in your research. They specialize in a variety of ethnic and geographic areas such as New York, French and Atlantic Canada, Jewish, African American, Italian, English, Irish, Scottish, immigration, Native American, military research. And of course early and colonial New England.
Our Collections
NEHGS offers extraordinary access to our extensive R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, featuring manuscript items from the fourteenth century to the present. This vast collection represents New England and other regions of the country. Some of the items in the collection include unpublished genealogies, Bible records, diaries and journals, 19th and 20th century photographs, cemetery, church, and town records, and other family papers.
Our Publications
NEHGS produces some of the most important publications in genealogy, including the member magazine American Ancestors, and the highly respected journal, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, published quarterly since 1847 and represents a premier collection of scholarly research. We also publish between eight and twelve books per year under our publishing imprint, Newbury Street Press.