This is a collection of free vital records books, otherwise known as “Tan Books” for Massachusetts towns. Generally, these records go up to 1849/1850 at which, the genealogist can use the census records to assist in identifying the family connections further. Included with this article is an account of why and how these manuscripts were published along with links to all 198 books which can be freely read or downloaded.
Alley Charles H. farmer Allen Daniel, master mariner Allen Joseph, farmer Ashley George H. mariner Ashley Rufus M. mariner Atwood Elias, cooper Atwood Thornton, cooper Atwood Warren, cooper Barrett William, butcher Bates Elijah farmer Bates Ephraim, farmer Bates Rowland B. master mariner Bearse Gershom, shoemaker Bennett Henry H. farmer, Bennett John, farmer Bennett John G. farmer Bennett Michael, farmer Benson Benjamin, mariner Benson Charles S. shoemaker Benson Ephraim, farmer Benson John A. master mariner Benson Joseph D. farmer Benson Rufns, farmer Benson William, farmer Bisbee Josiah, farmer Bishop Alvin, farmer Bishop Charles H. farmer Bishop Israel S. farmer Bishop Joseph … Read more
ROUNSEVILLE (Fall River family). The Rounsville or Rounseville family of ancient Freetown is believed to be of French origin, and a family tradition has it that they left France on account of religious persecution. It is the purpose here to refer to a branch of the Freetown Rounseville family which in time found its way into the busy manufacturing center of southeastern Massachusetts – Fall River – and soon became a part of the great activity there. Reference is made to the family of the late Capt. Cyrus Cole Rounseville, a master mariner of Freetown, who sailed from New Bedford in the whaling service, whose son and namesake Cyrus Cole Rounseville has long been one of the leading manufacturers of Fall River as treasurer of the Shove Mills, prominent in public life and identified with the banking interests of the city, etc.
The Rounsville or Rounseville family of ancient Freetown is believed to be of French origin, and a family tradition has it that they left France on account of religious persecution. It is the purpose here to refer to a branch of the Freetown Rounseville family which in time found its way into the busy manufacturing center of southeastern Massachusetts – Fall River – and soon became a part of the great activity there. Reference is made to the family of the late Capt. Cyrus Cole Rounseville, a master mariner of Freetown, who sailed from New Bedford in the whaling service, whose son and namesake Cyrus Cole Rounseville has long been one of the leading manufacturers of Fall River as treasurer of the Shove Mills, prominent in public life and identified with the banking interests of the city.
For perhaps fifty years there has lived in what is now Acushnet and figured largely in the industrial life of the locality a branch of the ancient and historic Cushman family of the Old Colony, in the immediate family of the late Emery Cushman, whose early life was passed in Duxbury; himself the founder of an enterprise here in which he was succeeded by his son and the latter by his sons, all of whom contributed through the manufacturing plant to the material progress and welfare of their locality.
It will be remembered that Robert Cushman was one of the most active and influential men in all of the preliminary movements of the Pilgrims in going to Leyden and thence to New England, he the ancestor of the Cushman family here in question, the marriage of whose son into the Howland family further identifies it with the “Mayflower” party.
There follows the history and genealogy of this Acushnet Cushman family in chronological order from this first American ancestor.
The family bearing this name in East Bridgewater, whose head was the late Hon. Isaac Newton Nutter, descends from an ancient and honorable family of early New Hampshire, and is connected by marriage in later generations with a number of the old and highly respected families of Plymouth Colony, among them descendants of the “Mayflower” Pilgrims. The emigrant ancestor,
Elder Hatevil Nutter, was born in England in 1603. He was one of those of good estate and of “some account for religion” who were induced to leave England with Captain Wiggins in 1633, and to found a town in New England on Dover Neck, in New Hampshire. His wife, Annie, and son, Anthony, accompanied him. He received several grants of land, and became a large holder of real estate. He was a ruling elder in the first church at Dover, and sometimes filled its pulpit. He filled various offices in church and state, was highly respectable, and possessed of a good share of this world’s goods. He died before June 28, 1675 (when his will was proved), at the age of seventy-one years, leaving a “present wife, Ann,” and three children.
The Middleboro family bearing this name is a branch of the Bridgewater family and it of the earlier Weymouth Kingman family, the American ancestor of which is credited with coming from Wales. This article pertains to some of the descendants of the late Maj. Bela Kingman, whose father, Abner Kingman, and family came from Bridgewater to Middleboro during the closing years of the Revolution, and here for generations the family has played well its part in the affairs of Middleboro, notably the Major’s son, Calvin D. Kingman, Esq., and the latter’s sons, Charles W. and Philip E. Kingman, who for years together and in turn developed and carried on a large shoe industry, giving employment to hundreds of hands.
Henry Huttleston Rogers, Fairhaven’s most distinguished son, was born there Jan. 29, 1840, and died May 19, 1909, in New York City. Of typical New England stock and Old Colony antecedents, his continued identity with Fairhaven made him dearly beloved in that community. The Rogers family is, perhaps, one of the most ancient and numerous of the old settled families in the country. There were no less than a dozen who bore the name of John Rogers among the seventeenth century emigrants, and one of this Christian name was president of Harvard College in the latter part of that century. It is the purpose in this article to deal, briefly, with only one of the New England Rogers families – that of which Henry Huttleston Rogers was a representative.
The purpose of this article to treat with one branch only of the Marshfield-Rochester family, the head of which was the late Hon. Charles Jarvis Holmes, lawyer and public servant of distinguished official relation, as was his father before him, Hon. Abraham Holmes, and as was also the former’s son excepting that he was a banker and financier instead of a member of the legal profession, and a man of high standing and long service in his calling at Fall River, where he was succeeded by his only son, Charles L. Holmes, now treasurer of the Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank, an institution his father had served in the same official relation for approximately fifty years, and who is worthily wearing the family name and sustaining its reputation.
An historical sketch about Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts as abstracted from the Plymouth County Directory and Historical Register of 1867. Includes a list of the men from Rochester who gave their life during the Revolutionary War.
ASHLEY (New Bedford family). Among the first settlers of Rochester, Mass., and their families appear the names of Joseph Ashley and his wife Elizabeth and their children. There had settled at Springfield as early as 1639 Robert Ashley; and from the fact that many of the early settlers of Springfield were drawn from Roxbury by Pynchon, perhaps Mr. Ashley had been there previously a short time. One Thomas Ashley resided at Cape Ann (Gloucester) in 1639; he was admitted an inhabitant of Boston in 1658, and was probably the Thomas Ashley of Maine, 1654, who, says Savage, may have removed … Read more
For nearly two hundred and seventy-five years the Packard family has been one prominent and influential in New England, and it has become a most numerous family, too, many of whose members both at home and abroad have given a good account of themselves. Samuel Packard, the immigrant ancestor of this family, became one of the early settlers of the ancient town of Bridgewater, and all of the name who have gone from the Bridgewaters were probably descendants of his; in fact, nearly all of the name in this country can be traced to that place. The genealogical records following … Read more
The family bearing this name in Fall River, to which belonged the late Hon. Rufus W. Bassett, long prominent in business and public affairs, for years a member of the board of police and much of the time its chairman, is a branch of the earlier Taunton family, it of the still earlier Rochester branch of the distinguished Bassetts of the Cape Cod towns of the Old Colony.
SWIFT. For a hundred years and more the Swift family in and about New Bedford has been one of prominence, wealth. and influence, not only in the several local communities in which its members have resided but out through the Commonwealth and into the nation, where their extensive enterprises have extended. These Acushnet-New Bedford Swifts, a branch of the Cape Cod family, brought to their new field of effort that activity, industry, ability and honesty that had for generations characterized their forefathers and also the line of business that had enriched earlier generations in the old home section – the … Read more