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
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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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