New Hampshire State Papers

The New Hampshire State Papers, also known as Documents and Records Relating to New Hampshire, 1623-1800, are the single most important collection of New Hampshire documents from its inception through 1800. Included in the collection are probate records, court records, town papers, town charters, Masonian papers, and Revolutionary War muster rolls. The entire forty-volume collection, including an index, is online in PDF format on the New Hampshire Archives website at http://www.sos.nh.gov/archives/nhstatepapers.html.

Brick Wall Solutions: Using Friends, Associates, and Neighbors

Brick Wall Solutions: Using Friends, Associates, and Neighbors

You’ve exhausted census, probate, land, and other traditional sources in search of your ancestors, but you’ve hit that proverbial brick wall, familiar to all genealogical researchers. If you’re ever to solve those problems, you must expand your search to include records of Friends, Associates, and Neighbors, a technique that Elizabeth Shown Mills has coined “The FAN Club.”

Identify neighbors through census and land records. Find friends and associates in deeds, wills, court records, and family papers. Explore your ancestors’ FAN Club with the same vigor and thoroughness applied to your own family. In many circumstances, you’ll find that they are your family! The results will astound you, particularly in the search for the identities of female ancestors! Maiden names often appear among the witnesses to deeds and wills, signed by fathers and brothers in an effort to protect the wife’s dower rights. Family papers often refer to relationships with friends and neighbors, describing in great detail significant events and shared experiences not recorded anywhere else.

Go through the documents you’ve collected to date, and make a list of the individuals with other surnames. You may want to keep a tally of how many times each person is mentioned, to help you prioritize the next steps in your search.

To access New Hampshire deeds online, go to our article on “Using Land Records” to learn how to search the deeds from the convenience of your own desktop. New Hampshire Probate Records are now online at the FamilySearch website. Just scroll down and click on “New Hampshire,” and you’re on your way! Although the probate records are not yet searchable, the card indexes are in alphabetical order, making it easy to find names and case numbers. Then, you can use the case number to browse the files, which are in numerical order. Finding the case file may take some time because the case numbers do not appear on every document. But keep going forward (or backward) until you find a page that contains the number, so you can get your bearings before continuing your search. Some case files contain only a few pages, while others may have 50 or more. The search is well worth the effort!

So have fun, and let us know if you have questions. We hope you will share your successes with us here on the 1790 New Hampshire Families Blog!

Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots

An invaluable source for locating the burial site of a Revolutionary War veteran is Patricia Law Hatcher's Abstracts of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots. This source documents the known burial locations of men who served in the American Revolution and is available for researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston and at the New Hampshire State Library in Concord.

New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association Burial Site Index

The New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to cemetery preservation in New Hampshire. The Association maintains a burial site index for all known graveyards in New Hampshire. The burial site index is an invaluable resource to New Hampshire genealogical researchers and is located online at http://nhoga.com/burial.htm. The GPS location of each cemetery is included in the index. Happy hunting!

The Stephen Chase Diary, 1784-1818

Stephen Chase was a farmer and land surveyor in Chester, Rockingham County, New Hampshire. His leather-bound diary, covering the period from 1784 through 1818, is among the jewels of the manuscript collection at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Every day, Chase wrote a single line about something significant that occurred that day. Many of those events are births, deaths, and marriages not recorded anywhere else! 

If you have ancestors who lived in or around Chester during this time period, this diary is a must-see! Although access to the original diary is restricted because of its fragile condition, it has been microfilmed, and may be viewed at NEHGS in Boston or at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord.

Happy hunting!

William Ran[d] death (1787), as recorded in the Stephen Chase Diary, 1784-1818, unpaginated (original diary at New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston; microfilm at New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord).

A State Treasure: The New Hampshire Historical Society

Join us for this lecture at the New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC) in Manchester, New Hampshire, 17-20 April 2013. The lecture is sponsored by the New Hampshire Society of Genealogists and will be presented by Certified Genealogist, Diane Florence Gravel.

The Tuck Library at the New Hampshire Historical Society has an enormous collection of published and original sources to help you knock down those 1790 brick walls. Learn how to take full advantage of this state treasure!

New England Regional Genealogical Consortium (NERGC) Conference

The New England Regional Genealogical Consortium (NERGC) Conference will be held in Manchester at the Radisson Hotel, 700 Elm Street in Manchester from Wednesday, April 17 to Sunday, April 20, 2013. The conference presents a vast array of events and learning experiences that are invaluable to New England researchers. For more information about the NERGC conference please visit the NERGC website at http://www.nergc.org.