This time of year always make me think of cemeteries. By the time October rolls around each year, the mind and senses become acutely aware of the changing seasons. Leaves are falling, there is a chill in the area. Add to this the custom of decorating for Halloween around old (“haunted”) homes, graveyards and “spooks”, then top it off by marking October as Family History month, and the mind is squarely in the court of the domain of our ancestors, the cemetery. Maybe your mind doesn’t travel the same pathways mine does, but you cannot deny the value of cemetery records in family history research.
All this of course leads up to my next book review on A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries.
If you have ancestors who lived and or died in Massachusetts then you will likely appreciate author David Allen Lambert’s efforts. This book is a straightforward directory to cemeteries, old and new, as well as burial grounds in Massachusetts. This 2009 edition both corrects and updates the popular 2002 edition.
The directory is organized, alphabetically, by town. Each town begins with a descriptive header. Each header entry presents the town name with the year of incorporation. The following line shows the name(s) of parent town(s). The address and phone number for city hall is included, as is information for the city’s cemetery department, if it exists.
Cemetery entries are then listed alphabetically for each town, with any alternate names, and year of construction or the oldest death/burial date taken from a headstone. Additional information includes the location of each cemetery, with address and phone number as available. Plus, there is a list of pertinent published books or articles containing transcription of headstones. G. R. equals gravestone records. Bracketed numbers are NEHGS (New England Historic Genealogical Society) call numbers. In some cases, a church parish or synagogue may hold the records.
Find your Massachusetts ancestor’s final resting place with A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries from Family Root Publishing; Price: $17.59.