See the previous chapters in the series here, here, here, and here.
Published versions of vital records (in print or digital) for early New England families are plentiful. Between americanancestors.org, familysearch.org, and ancestry.com, you can search the published volumes of “Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850”; Holbrook’s “Massachusetts Town Records 1620-1988,” which includes images from some original records; the Barbour collection of “Connecticut Vital Records to 1870”; Arnold’s “Rhode Island Vital Records, 1636-1930”; “Vermont Vital Records 1720-1908”; “New Hampshire records 1654-1949”; “Maine records 1620-1922”; and many more. There is no excuse these days for not checking an early New England vital record.
True or false? If you find a source that refers to an event from a published vital record, you can rest assured that all proper protocol has been followed, that the record has been copied correctly, that no conflicting records exist, and that you don’t need to actually look at the records yourself.
False, and it only takes a little exposure to backtracking vital records for you to realize how complicated verifying accounts can be when a transcription published in the The New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 1878 differs from the transcription published in the Massachusetts Vital Records Through 1850 volume published in 1910, which differs from the nineteenth century copy in “Massachusetts Town and Vital Records 1620-1988,” which differs from the seventeenth century original in the same collection, which conflicts with the baptismal date in church records, which may differ from a transcript of a contemporary family Bible….
In our example with Richard Newton, the vital records search is pretty straight-forward. I need to look at the vital records of Marlborough, Southborough, Sudbury, Charlestown, Marshfield, Watertown, Concord, and Framingham, all of which are available on americanancestors.org. I will bring up every birth, marriage, and death from the database, record the volume and page citations, print every relevant page for proofreading later (and to avoid Murphy’s Law – the one I don’t print will be the one I will have to look up again to settle a question or discrepancy). Then I will compare these to other transcriptions (e.g., early Sudbury records were published in the Register in 1852). Every single one of them, as many versions as I find.
Discrepancies may seem minor, but a typo or misinterpretation can snowball. Numbers of old calendar months, double year dates, and ages at death, for example, are fraught with danger. A death date written in Old Style as 2 (11) 1642, in his 54th year, might be translated, inaccurately, as 11 February 1642/43 age 54, then re-translated to 11 February 1643/44 in his 55th year, and you can see where that is heading. A “nit picking” brain is a requirement for all genealogists.
Assuming that I have now gone through all of the relevant published sources within my reach (see my posts on “Cheat Sheets”), the “fun” part, alas, is over. Next, the drudgery begins – composition, analysis, and proofreading.
To be continued.
