Last weekend Sue and I attended the ACGS Spring Conference in Manchester NH and had a fantastic time. The 5 different speakers presented on:
- The Resources at the Manchester Historical Society by Jeffrey Barraclough
http://www.manchesterhistoric.org/ - The Resources of the Manchester City Library by Eileen Reddy
http://www.manchester.lib.nh.us/ - The Resources of the NH State Library by Brian Burford
https://www.nh.gov/nhsl/ - The Resources of the NH State Archives by Deborah Moore
http://sos.nh.gov/Arch_Rec_Mgmt.aspx - A talk about Lineage Societies and the Daughters of the American Revolution in particular by Janine Penfield of the ACGS
http://www.dar.org/
Each presenter was full of information and very knowledgeable on their repositories even though the woman from the Manchester Public Library was new to the position.
Of the items that the presenters discussed, there were a few items that stuck out for me.
Manchester NH was built by, and around the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. As such, the Manchester Historical Society is the repository for their records including Employee Files which can include some interesting additions for your Manchester ancestor.
Included are accounting records, engineering reports, correspondence, production records, and fabric sample books, as well as documentation for the locomotives and steam fire engines produced by the Amoskeag Machine Shop. Beginning in 1911, there are employment cards for each person who worked in the mills which provide information about the person’s age, address, and job. – from http://www.manchesterhistoric.org/
This collection sounds amazing and how I wish I had ancestors from Manchester so I could make use of them.
The ‘NH Room’ at the Manchester City Library includes many resources including Census Materials, Local histories, New Hampshire Regimental Histories and the Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolution.
The NH Vital Records and State Archives took a tag team approach to their presentation. Vital records are open to the public and you can obtain those for Birth, Marriage, Death and Divorce. Birth records are available up until today’s date – 1916, while the other categories you can obtain up to 1966.
The Archives also holds the NH Association Test – Sate Papers vol 30.
In 1776, at the outset of the American Revolution, the New Hampshire Committee of Safety directed that all males over the age of twenty-one sign the Association Test–a kind of loyalty oath to the Patriot cause. In effect this resulted in a unique census of the adult male population inasmuch as the names of both signers and non-signers were recorded, and it is the most comprehensive list of New Hampshire residents available before the Census of 1790. Previously available in two separate, unindexed booklets, the present publication has placed all the names–well over 9,000–in one alphabetical sequence to enable the researcher to find a person and his town of residence at a glance. – Description from Ancestry.com [Link]
These papers will become important for Sue’s research – but that’s for another day.
Janine Penfield of the ACGS talked about Liniage Societies and the DAR in particular but also briefly reviewed La Société des Filles du roi et soldats du Carignan [Link] and the more local Piscataqua Pioneers [Link]. She reviewed the benefits of joining a society, the basic requirements to join, and lastly spoke regarding French Canadian Soldiers in the Revolutionary war of which the 2nd Canadian Regiment was one of them [Link]
Ooh Look, Squirrel! Looking over the Archives website just now though they have also made available 40 Volumes of the Sate Papers as PDF files as well as an Index File at http://sos.nh.gov/Papers.aspx. A look through the index and a trip down the rabbit hole led me to page 32 of Volume 39…
I have yet to download the remaining volumes which also list a Mark Noble… I probably shouldn’t look for Moses either… Oh well, so much for a nap.
As a sidebar for this free conference it was suggested that you bring a friend – so we did and I dragged Dick Gagnon, the Access Nashua Station Manager and long time member of the ACGS (and my boss) back out of the shadows to attend. He hates me now for pulling him back into the Rabbit Hole of Genealogy but wait until I can talk about the project that he picked back up.
Thanks again to the American Canadian Genealogical Society for putting on such a great conference and I can not wait until the next one.