Plymouth County Lookups

USGenWeb Genealogical Site for the County of

Plymouth County
Massachusetts

Return to USGenWeb Plymouth County Massachusetts

Plymouth County Lookups

   Many Plymouth County resources have been published, and we thank the volunteers who offer lookups in some of them.   If you have a book, index, family history, old or new phone book, microfilm, CD-ROM, or any other resource that might contain Plymouth County information helpful to others, please consider volunteering to do an occasional lookup.   Lookups done through email, so they are easy and usually take little time.   To volunteer send me email, and please describe your resource thoroughly.   You will also find town-specific lookup listings on most of the individual Plymouth County Town Pages.

Please follow these guidelines when requesting a lookup:
   The purpose of these lookups is to help you determine whether a particular source might have information that you would find useful.   After learning this, you are expected to obtain a copy of the source for yourself in order to find additional information.   Most of these sources are available through interlibrary loan, or can be borrowed or accessed online by members of NEHGS, the Godfrey Memorial Library and Ancestry.com.   Please do not ask the volunteer for lengthy quotations - keep your request brief.   Some volunteers might provide more information than you ask for, but please do not expect that - some of these volunteers have very limited time to devote to lookups.

   Note that the email addresses of most of the volunteers are not hyperlinked in order to reduce spam.   You will have to open your email program and type the volunteer's email address in.   Use Plymouth County Lookup as the subject of your request.   Many volunteers receive hundreds of email messages each day from genealogy mailing lists, other lookup sites and other sources.   If the subject line of your message contains nothing of interest for the volunteer, your message may end up in the trash without being read.

   Please begin your request with the title of the source that you want checked.   Many of these volunteers are doing lookups in several sources and on other USGenWeb sites.   Please limit your lookup request to a specific person or married couple. Do not ask for everyone with a given surname or an entire family group, or for photocopies to be mailed or scans to be emailed.   Be advised that USGenWeb Project volunteers have been asked not to comply with such requests.   If you are in doubt about what is proper in a lookup request, consult the USGenWeb copyright information.

   It will probably help the volunteer if you capitalize all surnames in your message - John SMITH, Mary JONES.   Please include dates or an approximate year, location, and the names of spouses and children if known.   This data may save the volunteer valuable lookup time.   It is a frustrating waste of time for a volunteer to spend time finding information in a seventeenth century sources if you are looking for a nineteenth century family.

   Please be as specific as possible and don't forget to thank your volunteer for their time and effort.

Lookup Categories

General Resources   Specific Towns (Records, Histories, City Directories)
Specific Surnames   Cemetery Records

General Resources

Source Volunteer

Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, Records of the Colony of New Plymouth In New England, 12 Vols. (Boston: The Press of William White, Printer to the Commonwealth, 1855-1861).   Please be extremely specific about what you wish me to look for - there is no overall index to these volumes, and I cannot take the time to check the individual indices in all twelve volumes.   Please specify, as far as possible, names, dates or years, places, and the type of record you are looking for.   If you are not sufficiently specific in your request I may have to turn you down. Dale H. Cook

Paul William Bittinger, The Past Remembered, October 22, 1900 To April 6, 1976 (Plymouth: privately printed, 1976).   A memoir of the author's early life in Plymouth

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647.   Many editions of Governor Bradford's history have been published since the manuscript was rediscovered in 1855.   Some retain the original spelling and orthography, while others have been modernized.   The most scholarly is the 1912 Ford edition, although the 'first' 1856 edition is remarkably reliable considering its early date of publication.   A partial transcription of Bradford's history is available on Caleb Johnson's old web site.

William T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks Of Plymouth. Part I: Historical Sketch And Titles Of Estates. Part II: Genealogical Register Of Plymouth Families (Boston: A. Williams and Company, 1883).   Note: A complete transcription is online at the Ancient Landmarks Of Plymouth Project.

William T. Davis, Plymouth Memories Of An Octogenarian (Plymouth: Memorial Press, 1906).

George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers. Being the Lives of the Pilgrim Fathers & Their Families, with Their Friends & Foes... (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945).   Webmaster's note: Although this book is very entertaining, its scholarship is frequently questionable.

Michael Tepper, Passengers to America: A Consolidation of Ship Passengers from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978).

Specific Towns
(Records, Histories, City Directories)

Source Volunteer

F. Apthorp Foster, Vital Records Of Kingston, Massachusetts, To The Year 1850 (Boston: NEHGS, 1911).

Records Of The Town Of Plymouth. Vol. 1, 1636-1705; Vol. 2, 1705-1743; Vol. 3, 1743-1783 (Plymouth: Memorial Press, Vol. 1: 1889, Vol. 2: 1892, Vol. 3: 1903).   Note that this is for the Town of Plymouth only and does not include any other towns.

Plymouth Town Reports: 1864-1878 (includes only marriages and deaths); 1879-1992 (includes births, marriages and deaths).   Note that this is for the Town of Plymouth only and does not include any other towns.

Plymouth Poll Tax Reports: 1905-1975 (lists place of residence for each voter).   Note that this is for the Town of Plymouth only and does not include any other towns.

Lee D. van Antwerp and Ruth Wilder Sherman, Vital Records Of Plymouth, Massachusetts, To The Year 1850 (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1993).

Lothrup's Plymouth Directory, 1936.   Includes some sections of Kingston served by the North Plymouth Post Office.

Specific Surnames

Source Volunteer

J. Howard Morse and Emily W. Leavitt, MORSE Genealogy (New York: Morse Society, 1903-1905).

Roy L. Shurtleff, Descendants of William SHURTLEFF (Revised edition, 1976; original by Benjamin Shurtleff, 1912).

Cemetery Records

Source Volunteer

Bradford Kingman, Epitaphs From Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, from 1657 to 1892. With Biographical and Historical Notes. (Brookline MA: New England Illustrated Historical Publishing Co., 1892).   One of two classic reference works for Plymouth's oldest cemetery.

Benjamin Drew, Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Its Monuments and Gravestones Numbered and Briefly Described, and the Inscriptions and Epitaphs Thereon Carefullly Copied. (Plymouth, MA: The Author, 1894, 1897; repr. Baltimore: Clearfield Co., 1994).   The other classic reference work for Plymouth's oldest cemetery. Dale H. Cook

Return to USGenWeb Plymouth County Massachusetts

Please note that although I was born in Plymouth County I now live hundreds of miles away and do not have easy access to the county.

Email comments to Dale H. Cook

Please visit the Plymouth Colony Pages

USGenWeb Plymouth County, MA, commenced by Charlie Williamson.
Continued, revised and expanded by Susan G. Taylor.
Revised and maintained since 23-Oct-2004 by Dale H. Cook.

Copyright © 1998-2008 by USGenWeb Plymouth County, MA Project.   All rights reserved.
This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without our consent.

Source	Volunteer
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, Records of the Colony of New Plymouth In New England, 12 Vols. (Boston: The Press of William White, Printer to the Commonwealth, 1855-1861). Please be extremely specific about what you wish me to look for - there is no overall index to these volumes, and I cannot take the time to check the individual indices in all twelve volumes. Please specify, as far as possible, names, dates or years, places, and the type of record you are looking for. If you are not sufficiently specific in your request I may have to turn you down.	Dale H. Cook
*Paul William Bittinger, The Past Remembered, October 22, 1900 To April 6, 1976* (Plymouth: privately printed, 1976). A memoir of the author's early life in Plymouth**
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647. Many editions of Governor Bradford's history have been published since the manuscript was rediscovered in 1855. Some retain the original spelling and orthography, while others have been modernized. The most scholarly is the 1912 Ford edition, although the 'first' 1856 edition is remarkably reliable considering its early date of publication. A partial transcription of Bradford's history is available on Caleb Johnson's old web site.
William T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks Of Plymouth. Part I: Historical Sketch And Titles Of Estates. Part II: Genealogical Register Of Plymouth Families (Boston: A. Williams and Company, 1883). Note: A complete transcription is online at the Ancient Landmarks Of Plymouth Project.
*William T. Davis, Plymouth Memories Of An Octogenarian* (Plymouth: Memorial Press, 1906).**
George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers. Being the Lives of the Pilgrim Fathers & Their Families, with Their Friends & Foes... (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945). Webmaster's note: Although this book is very entertaining, its scholarship is frequently questionable.
*Michael Tepper, Passengers to America: A Consolidation of Ship Passengers from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register* (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978).**

Source	Volunteer
*F. Apthorp Foster, Vital Records Of Kingston, Massachusetts, To The Year 1850* (Boston: NEHGS, 1911).**
Records Of The Town Of Plymouth. Vol. 1, 1636-1705; Vol. 2, 1705-1743; Vol. 3, 1743-1783 (Plymouth: Memorial Press, Vol. 1: 1889, Vol. 2: 1892, Vol. 3: 1903). Note that this is for the Town of Plymouth only and does not include any other towns.
Plymouth Town Reports: 1864-1878 (includes only marriages and deaths); 1879-1992 (includes births, marriages and deaths). Note that this is for the Town of Plymouth only and does not include any other towns.
Plymouth Poll Tax Reports: 1905-1975 (lists place of residence for each voter). Note that this is for the Town of Plymouth only and does not include any other towns.
*Lee D. van Antwerp and Ruth Wilder Sherman, Vital Records Of Plymouth, Massachusetts, To The Year 1850* (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1993).**
Lothrup's Plymouth Directory, 1936. Includes some sections of Kingston served by the North Plymouth Post Office.

Source	Volunteer
*J. Howard Morse and Emily W. Leavitt, MORSE Genealogy* (New York: Morse Society, 1903-1905).**
*Roy L. Shurtleff, Descendants of William SHURTLEFF* (Revised edition, 1976; original by Benjamin Shurtleff, 1912).**

Source	Volunteer
Bradford Kingman, Epitaphs From Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, from 1657 to 1892. With Biographical and Historical Notes. (Brookline MA: New England Illustrated Historical Publishing Co., 1892). One of two classic reference works for Plymouth's oldest cemetery.
Benjamin Drew, Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Its Monuments and Gravestones Numbered and Briefly Described, and the Inscriptions and Epitaphs Thereon Carefullly Copied. (Plymouth, MA: The Author, 1894, 1897; repr. Baltimore: Clearfield Co., 1994). The other classic reference work for Plymouth's oldest cemetery.	Dale H. Cook