Connecticut Town Records

In New England the town clerk is the principal record keeper on the local level. The earliest records are called proprietors' records.

Town records in Connecticut may contain births, marriages, deaths, burials, cemetery records, appointments, earmarks, estrays (stray animals), freemens' oaths (men eligible to vote), land records, mortgages, name changes, care of the poor, school records, surveys, tax lists, town meeting minutes, voter registrations, and "warning outs" (of town).

Town records generally begin with the founding of the town and are kept to the present. Many of the original town records are in the town clerks' offices. Some are at the Connecticut State Library.

An excellent inventory of Connecticut local records is Nelson P. Mead, "Public Archives of Connecticut: County, Probate, and Local Records," in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1906, Volume 2, pp. 53-127 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908; FHL book 973 C4ah; film 896557).

The Family History Library has microfilms of many Connecticut town records from the creation of the town to the early 1920s. To find the film numbers for these records, use the FamilySearch Catalog Place-names search for a particular town. The films can be used at the Library, and many can also be sent to family history centers.