This is a growing collection of free genealogy books and documents. Read or download the free PDFs.
English and American Drakes : paper prepared and read at the Drake reunion / by Medora Corbett, Aug. 8, 1912. Also family record of two sons of Richard and Mary Wood Drake, born in Orange County, New York, by William T. Drake. The two sons are Timothy Drake (1788-1839) and Thomas Wood Drake (1794-1879).
The ancestry of Sarah Stone, wife of James Patten of Arundel (Kennebunkport) Maine
Contains also the Dixey, Hart, Norman, Neale, Lawes, Curtis, Kilbourne, Bracy, Bisby, Pearce, Marston, Estow and Brown families.
Written by Edna Dooling Herrin for her daughter Eurilla, this self-published manuscript intent was to instruct Eurilla on her ancestry, especially in the settling of Madison County, Illinois. Families mentioned: Barber, Culp, Dooling, Harris, Herrin, Judy, Pearce, Rhodes, and Walsh.
Edward Hunt’s “Weymouth ways and Weymouth people: Reminiscences” takes the reader back in Weymouth Massachusetts past to the 1830s through the 1880s as he provides glimpses into the people of the community. These reminiscences were mostly printed in the Weymouth Gazette and provide a fair example of early New England village life as it occurred in the mid 1800s. Of specific interest to the genealogist will be the Hunt material scattered throughout, but most specifically 286-295, and of course, those lucky enough to have had somebody “remembered” by Edward.
Evelyn Baldwin provided Allen County Public Library with a packet of research information on her ancestors Revolutionary War that she had compiled back in 1926. In 1949 the library then bound those 72 pages and enclosed them in covered book boards, thereby making them more accessible to their patrons. Fast forward to 2018 and the Library has digitized these pages and made them accessible to anyone online.
Nothing is better than to see a relatively new genealogical manuscript make its way online for free. Pamela A. Richardson has graciously allowed her “Wendell, Massachusetts: Its Settlers and Citizenry, 1752-1900” to be digitized by Internet Archive and made available to the general public. The reach and expansion of this manuscript has greatly been increased by this action, and researchers of their roots in Wendell Massachusetts are greatly appreciative! Surnames featured: Baker, Ballard, Ballou, Brewer, Bufford, Burgess, Clark, Cooke, Crosby, Drury, Fiske, Glazier, Goodale, Green, Hager, Howe, Kilburn, King, Locke, Metcalf, Oakes, Orcutt, Osgood, Phelps, Sawyer, Sibley, Stebbins, Stiles, Stone, Sweetser, Tyrer, Wetherbee, and Wilder.
“The Crum Family in America” by Edwin Wallace Crum and Ferris Bertrand Crum is a comprehensive exploration of the Crum lineage, focusing primarily on two branches that emigrated from the Lower Rhineland, Germany, and settled in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Published in 1949 by Wallace Press, this book meticulously compiles historical and genealogical data about the Crum family without claiming to encompass all bearers of the Crum name. Delving into the lives and legacies of key figures such as Anthony Crum, Sr., and Matthias Crum, Sr., the text presents a detailed account of their migration to America around 1770, their subsequent settlements, and their family developments in Virginia. By combining archival records and the first U.S. Census data, this work aims to piece together the family’s early American history, while acknowledging gaps and unresolved connections in the family’s lineage.
The manuscript contains genealogical material on the Crow and allied families of Stroud, Parker, and Kean.
About 1860, Charles Curtis Greenwood, a local antiquarian of ability, began to copy the inscriptions in the old graveyard at Needham, and to prepare genealogical notes in reference to each person buried there. He devoted much time and correspondence to this work, and in 1890 began to publish the results of his labors in the Dedham Historical Register. At the time of his death 397 epitaphs had been published and 228 remained in manuscript, most of which were annotated. His widow conscripted George Kuhn Clark to publish the remaining inscriptions along with all of the published inscriptions in a single volume in 1898 called “Needham Epitaths.” Clark, relying on the original transcription of Charles, along with his own new transcription, re-walked all of the cemeteries, enumerating the gravestones once again. Includes genealogical notes of the people interred.
The contents of the book on the records of First Church in Falmouth Maine were gleaned for and first appeared in the historical and genealogical columns of the Portland Evening Express. It contains a brief history of the church, followed by a list of its members from 1727 through 1855, a register of marriages from 1750 through 1853, and an alphabetical list of baptisms, presumably from the organization of the church. The appendix, comprising exactly half of the book, is made up of historical information, both ecclesiastical and secular, relating to Falmouth and its vicinity.
This volume is made up, as the title indicates, of eight papers, now revised and partly rewritten, to each of which are added notes supplying a page or two of comment or explanation. The papers treat respectively of the Green as a public square, a political and civic forum, a religious and ecclesiastical arena, a parade ground, a seat of judicial tribunals, an educatioual campus, a market-place, and a cemetery. In a style abounding in facetiae not unworthy of Dickens, the author reviews the succession of events which have transpired in connection with the Green, with their changing scenic accompaniments of stocks, whipping-post, jail, tombstones, school-house, meeting-house, state-house; setting in prominent relief the more humorous or otherwise impressive incidents, and neglecting no occasion for satirical thrusts at contemporary folly, keenly relished by the reader, without doubt, but certain — as in all such cases — to be contemptuously slighted by those who alone might profit by them. His comparison of the “Blue laws” of Connecticut with those of the other colonies evidently affords as much satisfaction to himself as instruction to the most of his readers, justifying his declaration that the New Haven Colony can very complacently allow its laws to be called “blue in contrast with the black and crimson legislation of its contemporaries.”
Births, marriages, and deaths returned from Hartford, Windsor, and Fairfield, and entered in the early land records of the colony of Connecticut : volumes I and II of land records and no. D of colonial deeds. These records cover the years of 1631-1691, and have been extracted from land records and colonial deeds of the time.
The Vestry Book and Register of Bristol Parish, Virginia, 1720-1789 includes a register of births, baptisms and deaths, the earliest and latest recorded dates of which are April 12, 1685, and March 9, 1798. The compiler has wisely reproduced the original manuscript with “all eccentricities of abbreviation and punctuation, as well as all mistakes.” A carefully prepared index greatly adds to the usefulness of the work.
The History of Hancock New Hampshire is an extensive manuscript of over 1,000 pages which details not only the history of the town from its inception to the end of the 19th century, but also comprises over 700 pages worth of Hancock NH family genealogies.
This book contains much valuable genealogical data from local church records and cemeteries, and brief accounts of the following families : — Allen, Averill, Barnes, Bassett, Booth, Bradley, Bray, Canfield, Downs, Edmonds, French, Gilbert, Guthrie, Hann, Hayes, Hendryx, Hill, Mitchell, Pierce, Piatt, Post, Russell, Skeels, Stoddard, Tuttle, Wagner, Wakeley, Ward and Warner.
This volume is the result of a careful collection and verification of facts and traditions extending over a period of more than forty-five years. It embraces the history of a New England town to the close of the Revolution — to a time when old customs and systems were disappearing and new forces in political, ecclesiastical, educational, and social affairs were springing into life. It is the story of an elder day and of a life in which much appears that is strange to a later age. If we read it aright we shall better understand our indebtedness to those generations whose labors and trials made possible the freedom and prosperity of the present; and we shall avoid that effusive worship of the fathers which is a fashion rather than the result of a knowledge of the true character of the past in its weaknesses and strength.
Silas Wood’s sketch of the town of Huntington, L.I. is a small manuscript of 63 pages which provides an authoritative look at the early history of Huntington New York, from its first settlement to the end of the American revolution. Particularly fascinating to our Native American researchers is the history of the early interaction with the Matinecoes, the Massapeags, and the Secataugs.
Copied by George Ethridge from various manuscript volumes and loose papers, and arranged as nearly as possible by dates. Records of births, marriages, and deaths not included. The bounds of Duxbury originally included what is now within the limits of Duxbury, Marshfield, Pembroke, Hanson, the Bridgewaters and Brockton.
David Shanks is descended from Thomas Shanks, who was living in Washington Township, York County, Pennsylvania by 1763 when he first appears on a land warrant there. The genealogy then deals with the descendants of David and Hannah Morrison Shanks of Amsterdam, Botetourt County, Virginia, the second son of said Thomas.
The Stitgen family comprises most of the book, and starts with Theodor and Barbare (Wollgrafs) Stutgen (the family would variously spell their name as Stutgen, Stuttgen, Stuettgen, and Stitgen.) Theodore Stitgen, grandson of Theodor Stutgen would immigrate to Richfield, Wisconsin about 1850 and eventually settled in Hillsboro, Oregon.
The Doane family starts with Christina Barnet from Annandale Scotland, who’s husband _____ Doane, died while in Scotland. She settled in Waunakee Wisconsin in 1853, with her twin sons, Andrew and Peter. The progenitor of the Rapp family, Peter and Susan (Marsh) Rapp, started in Pennsylvania and moved their family to Dane Township, Wisconsin in 1848. The Steele family starts with Robert and Nancy (Dunshee) Steele of Armagh County, Northern Ireland, who met on the voyage to America in 1801. They settled near Bovina, Delaware County, New York. The Newman family starts with John and Mary Newman of Polajewo Poland. They immigrated to America together in 1853 and settled in Madison, Wisconsin.