New from the American Ancestors Database: Massachusetts: Catholic Cemetery Association Records, 1833-1940.
Cemetery burial records are highly valuable genealogical records. Often called permits for burial, they may include birth, marriage, death information as well as clues about military service, religion, or membership in an organization, such as a lodge. Cemetery records are especially helpful for identifying children who died young or women who were not recorded in family or government documents.
This new Boston Catholic Cemetery Association record set from American Ancestors/New England Historical Genealogical Society is remotely accessible with your Memorial Hall Library card. The dataset contains records detailing cemetery lot sales, interments, lot owners, and dates and locations of burial for twenty cemeteries across eastern Massachusetts for the years 1833 through 1940. Data for eleven additional Boston-area Catholic cemeteries will be available by December 2021. Interactive maps of each cemetery to help you locate each lot are forthcoming according the NEHGS.
Three Merrimack Valley Catholic cemeteries are included in the database at this time: Sacred Heart Cemetery in Andover and St. Josephs and St. James Cemeteries in Haverhill.
This database supports the following searchable fields:
- First and/or last names
- Year (or range of years)
- Record type
- Location
- Family member names: Spouse, Mother, and Father (where available)
- Age is only available for a subset of records.
For more information or help logging into American Ancestors with your Memorial Hall Library card, contact rdesk@mhl.org.