Donate Materials to the Library and Special Collections

NEHGS encourages our members and friends to consider donating their genealogical materials.

Many researchers own unique manuscript items. Donations of such items to NEHGS form the basis of our amazing manuscript collection. Many researchers may wish to plan for the eventual disposition of their family collections. NEHGS is the perfect place to preserve and protect your family treasures, and make them available to future generations of family history researchers.

Donations of books and other published material (periodicals, CDs, etc.) relevant to genealogy or local history are also greatly appreciated. These gifts will be added to our Research Library as new titles or replacement copies. If they are not needed in the collection, they may be sold to benefit the NEHGS Book Preservation Fund. We also seek donations of digital files (preferably PDF or Word documents) for addition to the NEHGS Digital Library and Archive.

What We Collect

• Papers and records of professional / amateur genealogists and family associations
• Personal records in the form of correspondence, diaries, bible records, family registers, journals, wills, deeds, photographs, and other records
• Town and church records and functions (transcriptions or originals)
• Manuscript genealogies, notes or charts
• Corporate or professional records that contain valuable genealogical or historical information
• Transcriptions or other copies of documents of the national governments (i.e., naturalization, immigration, census, military, and ship records) 
• Books and other published material (periodicals, CDs, etc.) in print or electronic form   

Donating Materials to NEHGS

NEHGS, like many institutions, prefers manuscript gifts to include the transfer of any rights a donor may possess in the original material. This is requested so that NEHGS may, at its discretion, exhibit or reformat/reproduce (for preservation and/or publication) all or part of a collection in the media of our choice.

Per IRS regulations, monetary appraisals cannot be undertaken by any representative of NEHGS. All monetary appraisals will be done at the donor's expense.

Donors of manuscript are asked to provide information about the collection's creator(s) or compiler(s) to assist us with cataloging.

Permanent deposits are discouraged because NEHGS must expend its limited resources towards maintaining and preserving fully donated manuscripts. In rare instances when such collections are accepted, they must be central to the acquisition policy and should have a defined limit at which time they become the property of NEHGS.

For more information on donating manuscript items, please contact:

Timothy Salls
Senior Archivist
New England Historic Genealogical Society
101 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02116-3007
tsalls@nehgs.org
617-226-1232

For more information on donating books and other published material, please contact:

Olga Tugarina
Technical Services Assistant
New England Historic Genealogical Society
101 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02116-3007
otugarina@nehgs.org
617-226-1228