New England Historical and Genealogical Register

New England Historical and Genealogical Register
Title	New England Historical and Genealogical Register
Discipline	History; Genealogy
Language	English
Publisher	New England Historic Genealogical Society
Country	United States
History	1847–present
Frequency	Quarterly

New England Historical and Genealogical Register The New England Historical and Genealogical Register is a long-running quarterly periodical published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society focusing on regional history and family history. Founded in the mid-19th century amid contemporary interest in lineage and commemoration, the Register has connected researchers associated with institutions such as Harvard College, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Antiquarian Society. Over its run the periodical has featured work engaging figures linked to Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony), Roger Williams, John Winthrop, Benjamin Franklin, and families connected to Revolutionary War battles and to later migrations like the Great Migration (Puritan).

History and founding

The Register was established in 1847 during an era shaped by movements including the Second Great Awakening, the rise of Henry Clay–era politics, and civic initiatives exemplified by the founding of the Smithsonian Institution and the preservation work of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Early founders and editors drew upon networks that included members of the Suffolk Resolves, subscribers who were contemporaries of Daniel Webster, and antiquarians influenced by the scholarship of Samuel Eliot Morison antecedents. Initial aims mirrored projects such as the Cambridge Camden Society in Britain and paralleled continental efforts like the Society of Antiquaries of London to document pedigrees, land records, probate inventories, and transcriptions of colonial documents associated with families who served in the French and Indian War and later the American Civil War.

Publication and editorial practices

From its first volumes, the Register adopted editorial conventions comparable to those of periodicals run by the American Historical Association and the Royal Historical Society. Editors instituted peer review practices and citation norms influenced by the standards of Harvard University Press and the bibliographic rigor of the Bodleian Library. The publication has balanced primary-source publication—transcriptions of town records, church records, wills, and military service records—with interpretive articles on figures such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, Eli Whitney, and local magnates tied to the Whaling Industry and the Transatlantic slave trade. The Register’s editorial board historically included correspondents who were members of the New England Historic Genealogical Society as well as curators from the Peabody Essex Museum and librarians associated with the Library of Congress.

Content and thematic focus

Recurring themes in the Register include genealogical pedigrees for families like the Winslow family, the Bradstreet family, and the King family (Rhode Island), transcriptions of colonial and Revolutionary-era documents tied to events such as the Boston Tea Party and the Siege of Boston, and biographical sketches of clergymen, merchants, sea captains, and civic leaders like Cotton Mather, Thomas Hutchinson (governor), and James Otis Jr.. It has published scholarship on migration patterns including links to the Mayflower Compact, emigration to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and diasporas connecting to Ireland and Scotland. Studies in the Register have also engaged material culture topics found in collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Historic New England archives.

Notable contributors and articles

The Register has featured contributions from prominent antiquarians and historians such as Edmund Sears-era correspondents, scholars with ties to George Bancroft, amateurs who worked alongside figures like Horace Mann, and later professional historians connected to Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and Alan Nevins. Noteworthy articles have examined pedigrees and primary documents concerning families linked to John Hancock, Paul Revere, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and obscure colonial actors who appear in correspondence with Benjamin Franklin and John Winthrop. The Register has also printed investigative studies about property disputes referenced in cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and transcriptions relevant to genealogists tracing veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War.

Influence and reception

Scholars, genealogists, and local historians have regarded the Register as instrumental in shaping genealogical methodology alongside institutions such as the New England Historic Genealogical Society and publications like the American Genealogist and the Genealogist (England). It influenced compendia such as the Dictionary of American Biography and fed source material used by biographers of John Adams, Samuel Adams, Faneuil Hall–era merchants, and chroniclers of the Industrial Revolution in New England including studies of the Lowell mills. The periodical has been cited in legal histories concerning property law cases like those heard during the Panic of 1837 aftermath and has informed museum exhibitions at institutions including the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum.

Access, digitization, and archival holdings

Back issues of the Register are held by repositories such as the American Antiquarian Society, the Boston Public Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and university libraries including Yale University Library and Harvard University Library. Major digitization projects have made volumes searchable alongside digitized collections from the National Archives and Records Administration, the Digital Public Library of America, and regional initiatives like those led by Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Microfilm and scanned copies also appear in the catalogs of the Library of Congress and in union catalogs maintained by the OCLC network.

Category:History journals Category:Genealogy