Middlesex County, Massachusetts Genealogy

United States Massachusetts  Middlesex County

This is a historical and genealogical guide to the county of Middlesex. You will find help with town histories, vital records, deeds and land records, city directories, cemetery records and cemeteries, churches, town records, newspapers, maps, and libraries.

Brief History
Middlesex County was one of the four original counties when [Bay Colony] created counties in 1643. When established, it had no defined western or northern border. These borders were more clearly defined when Worcester County was created in 1731 on the west and the Province of New Hampshire in 1680 to the north, but this border remained in dispute until 1741. Early settlers in this county went north, west, and south to establish new settlements in the 1600s and 1700s. The oldest college in the United States was established in Cambridge in 1636 - Harvard College, now Harvard University. Lowell, on the Merrimack River, became one of the centers of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s that drew many immigrants to work in the mills, especially Irish and French-Canadian. The county government was abolished on 11 July 1997, but its former jurisdiction is used for state offices as a district. Top of Page

Historical Data
The basic data are from the historical county boundary series with additions from various sources.

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Towns and Cities
The following list of present-day Middlesex County towns and cities links them to their individual pages. There you will find a list of other names used for the town or city and of villages and sections of the town or city. Acton (1735) | Arlington (1807) | Ashby (1767) | Ashland (1846) Ayer (1871) | Bedford (1729) | Belmont (1859) | Billerica (1655) Boxborough (1835) | Burlington (1799) | Cambridge (1636) | Carlisle (1780) Chelmsford (1655) | Concord (1635) | Dracut (1701) | Dunstable (1673) Everett (1870) | Framingham (1700) | Groton (1655) | Holliston (1724) Hopkinton (1715) | Hudson (1866) | Lexington (1713) | Lincoln (1754) Littleton (1715) | Lowell (1826) | Malden (1649) | Marlborough (1660) Maynard (1871) | Medford (1630) | Melrose (1850) | Natick (1781) Newton (1688) | North Reading (1853) | Pepperell (1775) | Reading (1644) Sherborn (1674) | Shirley (1775) | Somerville (1842) | Stoneham (1725) Stow (1683) | Sudbury (1639) | Tewksbury (1734) | Townsend (1732) Tyngsborough (1809) | Wakefield (1812) | Waltham (1738) | Watertown (1630) Wayland (1780) | Westford (1729) | Weston (1713) | Wilmington (1730) Winchester (1850) | Woburn (1642) Annexed to Boston: Brighton (1806) | Charlestown (1630)

County Histories
Works written on the county include:


 * Biographical Review ... containing life sketches of leading citizens of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1898), 838 pp. WorldCat (Other Libraries); . Digital versions at Internet Archive and Torrentz.
 * Henry J. Cadbury, "Quakers and their abettors, Middlesex County, Massachusetts" in the Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association, 27 [Spr. 1938]: 9-16. WorldCat (Other Libraries); . Digital version at Project Muse.
 * Edwin P. Conklin, Middlesex County and its People: a history (New York, 1927), 5v. WorldCat (Other Libraries);.
 * Samuel Adams Drake, ed., History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county ... (Boston, 1880), 2v. WorldCat (Other Libraries); (with digital link) or . Digital versions at Internet Archive (v. 1 and v. 2) and Google Books (v. 2 only).
 * Levi Swanton Gould, Ancient Middlesex with brief Biographical Sketches of the Men who served the county officially since its settlement ([Somerville], Mass., 1905), 336 pp. WorldCat (Other Libraries); . Digital versions at Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, and Ancestry ($).
 * D. Hamilton Hurd, ed., History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men ... (Philadelphia, 1890), 3v. in 4. WorldCat (Other Libraries); (with digital link). Digital versions at Internet Archive (v. 1, v. 2, and v. 3), Google Books (v. 1 and v. 3 only), and Ancestry ($).
 * Christopher Roberts, The Middlesex Canal, 1793-1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), xii, 252 pp. WorldCat (Other Libraries); Not at FHL.
 * Samuel Sewall, "A Brief Survey of the Congregational Churches and Ministers in the County of Middlesex, and in Chelsea in the County of Suffolk, Ms., from the first settlement of the country to the present day" in American Quarterly Register, 11 [1838-1839]: 45-55, 174-197, 248-279, 376-402; 12 [1839-1840]: 234-250; 13 [1840-1841]: 37-57; 14 [1842]: 251-264, 393-411. WorldCat (Other Libraries); Not at FHL.
 * Roger Thompson, Sex in Middlesex: popular mores in a Massachusetts County, 1649-1699 (Amherst, Mass., 1986), xix, 252 pp. WorldCat (Other Libraries); Not at FHL.
 * The Middlesex County MAGenWeb Project, an member of The MAGenWeb Project, an affiliate of The USGenWeb Project.
 * The USGenWeb Archives Project for Middlesex County
 * The USGenWeb Archives Project for Middlesex County (backup site)
 * Family History Library catalog for Middlesex County

Vital Records
In Massachusetts, the original vital records (of births, marriages, and deaths) have been created and maintained by the town or city in which the event occurred. In very early colonial times, copies of these records were submitted to the county, but that practice died out long before 1700. There were marriage intentions commonly recorded in the bride's home town and additional recordings maybe found in the groom's home town and their current residence.

Massachusetts was the first state to bring a unified state-level recording of these events (but not marriage intentions) in 1841 (Boston excluded until 1850). The associated records of divorce and adoption are handled by the courts. The state has maintained a state-wide index to divorces since 1952, but adoption records will require more researching to discover.

It is easiest to start with the state vital records for events since 1841, though realize the original record is with the town or city. More details can be found on the Massachusetts Genealogy Guide page.

Land Records
Land transfers, commonly called deeds, are recorded on the county level in Massachusetts. Not all deeds were recorded as is common practice today. The earliest transactions were charters or grants from the English Crown. Once local government was established, the colony would grant land to settlers directly or to towns to dole out. Some towns first start out as proprietorship and records were recorded there. Once towns were established, deeds were recorded on the county level. Middlesex County is divided into two districts. The county was one district until the creation of the Northern District in 1855.

Middlesex North Registry of Deeds 360 Gorham Street Lowell MA 01852 Phone 978-322-9000 Email [mailto:lowelldeeds@comcast.net lowelldeeds@comcast.net] This district includes Billerica, Carlistle, Chelmsford, Dracut, Dunstable, Lowell, Tweksbury, Tyngsborough, Westford, and Wilmington. Original records The original records are held by the Registry but closed to the public. All their records are available ONLINE at LowellDeeds.com. Deeds are searchable by index since 1976. The older deeds, books 1 through 2789, can be viewed on the site, but only by volume and page. Deeds for this district prior to its creation in 1855 were copied from the southern district by town. This is available online, too, but without an index and it does not correspond to the southern district's volume and page. Note: To see records before 1976, you must first go to the SEARCH option that takes you to the masslandrecords.com website for Northern Middlesex. Under the link at the top left called "Search Criteria," you can select the grantor or grantee index. From the new search page, you can search for a surname or exact name. The default is the pre-district period up to 1855. Later periods to 1975 can be selected before your search. These indexes will give you the volume and page you need for the Registry's main search page of older records by volume and page, town, a brief description, and the type of deed. The pre-1856 index includes the original volume and page found in the Middlesex South distict. There are no microfilmed records from this district.

Middlesex South Registry of Deeds 208 Cambridge Street Cambridge MA 02141 Phone 617-679-6300 Email [mailto:middlesexsouth@sec.state.ma.us middlesexsouth@sec.state.ma.us] This district included the entire county up to 1855 and all southern towns not listed above after that. Original records The original records are held by Registry office and your research will likely require a personal visit to the office. The only records online are: Deed indexes since 1974 and deed books since 1986 are available online from the main page that directs you to the MassLandRecords.com for Middlesex South.

Note: Grantor indexes (NOT grantee) from 1896 to 1973 are available for sale on 8-disc DVD set from the Middlesex South Registry. Original records on microfilm Note: All these records listed below are online at FamilySearch.org as a browsable collection only (as of Aug. 2013). Also, it is not clearly stated, but these records are for the entire county up to 1855, though only for Middlesex South after that.

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 * Grantor indexes, 1639-1950, 358 reels. As 1639-1799 (3); 1800-1835 (3); 1836-1846 (2); 1847-1859 (6); 1860-1869 (14); 1870-1880 (21); 1881-1890 (22); 1891-1895 (15); 1896-1950 (272).
 * Grantee indexes, 1639-1905, 95 reels. As 1639-1799 (3); 1800-1835 (3); 1836-1846 (2); 1847-1859 (6); 1860-1869 (11); 1870-1880 (18); 1881-1890 (16); 1891-1895 (13); 1896-1905 (23).
 * Deeds, v. 1 (1639) - v. 2790 (1899).

Probate Records
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 * Robert H. Rodgers, Middlesex County in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England: Records of Probate and Administration (Boston, 1999-2005), 3v. Note: Vol. 1, 1649-1660; Vol. 2, 1661-1670; Vol. 3, 1671-1676. WorldCat (Other Libraries) (WorldCat v. 1, v. 2, v. 3; and does not have v. 3.
 * Index to the probate Records of the County of Middlesex, Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass., 1912-1953), 10v. First Series, 1648-1870; Second Series, 1871-1909; Third Series, 1910-1924; Fourth Series, 1925-1939; Fifth Series, 1940-1949. WorldCat (Other Libraries); (with digital link) and . Digital versions at AmericanAncestors ($) First Series and Internet Archives, Second Series (v. 1 and v. 2).
 * William A. Richardson, "Judges of Probate, County of Middlesex, Mass." in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 29 [1875]: 61-66. WorldCat (Other Libraries); . Digital version also at AmericanAncestors.org ($).

Other Court Records
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 * Hendrik Hartog, "The Public Law of a County Court: Judicial Government in Eighteenth Century Massachusetts" in American Journal of Legal History, 20 [1976]: 282-329. A study of the records of the Middlesex County Court of General Sessions, 1728-1803. WorldCat (Other Libraries); . Digital version at Jstor ($).
 * Nathaniel Harris, Records of the Court of Nathaniel Harris, one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace within and for the county of Middlesex, holden at Watertown from 1734 to 1761 ... (Watertown, Mass., 1938), 135 pp. WorldCat (Other Libraries);.
 * [Alicia Crane Williams], "Handlist of Middlesex County Massachusetts Fornication cases, 1649-1749" (S.l., typ., 1979), 23 pp. Not on WorldCat; Not at FHL; Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants Library.

Taxation Records
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Maps
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Middlesex County Massachusetts Genealogy Societies
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