Massachusetts is called “the Bay State”. Are you looking for information about your ancestors who once lived in the state of Massachusetts? Here are a bunch of online genealogy resources that can help you. Most of them are free to use.
Internment.net has cemetery records online. You can start by putting your ancestor’s name into the search engine at the top of the page. Or, you can select one of the counties in Massachusetts that you want to browse through. Most counties have a link that connects to records from cemeteries within the county. If there is no link, it means there is no information.
Ancestry.com has a page that is filled with links to all their collections of records that are for Massachusetts. To access the records, you need to have an Ancestry.com membership. Once in a while, some records will be offered for free. Return to that page often. Ancestry.com does a great job of letting you know if a collection is new, has been updated, or is being offered for free.
Cyndi’s List is the most comprehensive collections of links to online genealogy resources. If it is online, then Cyndi’s List probably has a link to it. They have a page called “United States – Massachusetts”. Pick one of several categories to start with. Choose from: “Birth, Marriage, Death”, “Census”, “Counties”, “Military”, “Newspapers”, and more!
FamilySearch has a Wiki page about Massachusetts. You can click on a link for each county in Massachusetts, and it will take you to another Family Search Wiki page that is more specific to that county. Scroll down to find a list of links to major record repositories in Massachusetts. Towards the bottom of their page, you can find a bunch of links that will take you to more FamilySearch Wiki pages about Massachusetts records.
FamilySearch has a Community Page for Massachusetts Genealogy Research from FamilySearch. This is a good resource to use if you want to learn when FamilySearch has updated its Massachusetts records. It is also a great way to connect with other genealogists who are doing research on ancestors from this state.
GeneaLinks has an easy to use search engine at the top of their page. Put the name of your ancestor into it. Select the record type you want to search through: vital, birth, death, marriage, divorce, or “Genealogy”. GeneaLinks also has helpful information for genealogists who are new to Massachusetts genealogy. Did you know that birth, marriage, and death records in this state could go back to 1841?
Image by Bree Bailey on Flickr