National Archives at Boston

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Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:waltham.archives@nara.gov waltham.archives@nara.gov]

Address:


 * Frederick C. Murphy Federal Center
 * 380 Trapelo Road Waltham, Massachusetts 02452-6399

Telephone: (781) 663-0130 Fax: (781) 663-0154

Hours and holidays: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Open some Saturdays 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.:

Map, directions, and public transportation:


 * For a map, click here.
 * By car from Boston: Take Massachusetts Turnpike west to Route 128/I-95, Exit 15. Take Route 128/I-95 north to Trapelo Road, Exit 28A - Belmont. Follow Trapelo Road for 2.8 miles. The facility is on the right. For an alternate route, take Storrow Drive, Boston, to Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, to Belmont Street, Watertown. Continue on Belmont Street to Trapelo Road. The facility is on the left.
 * By car from the west: Take the Massachusetts Turnpike to Route 128/I-95. Go north on Route 128/I-95 to Trapelo Road, Exit 28A - Belmont. Follow Trapelo Road for 2.8 miles. Archives is on the right.
 * By public transportation: From the Park Street station, take the MBTA bus to Harvard Square. From Harvard Square, take the MBTA bus to Waverly Square in Belmont (bus runs every 15 minutes). Walk or take a taxi 1.5 miles west on Trapelo Road to the facility.

Internet sites and databases:


 * Northeast Region (Boston) Internet site gives contact info, FAQs, featured documents, genealogical and historical research, holdings, guides, court records, new accessions, programs, and services.
 * For Genealogists and Family Historians resources, how-to, workshops, military and civilian records.
 * Access to Archival Databases (AAD) a search engine into some of NARA's holdings of electronic records. Search by person, geographic areas, organizations, or dates.
 * Archival Research Catalog (ARC) ARC is the online catalog of NARA's nationwide holdings, describing over 63% of their holdings. Searches by keywords, by location, organization, person, or topics, and for digitized images.
 * Archives Library Information Center (ALIC) The Reference at Your Desk feature provides quick access to online resources on many diverse subjects.

Collection Description
Serves Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Includes databases and microfilms of all federal censuses to 1930, U.S. District, Circuit, and Court of Appeals records of the 1st District, customs and the Coast Guard in New England ports, Army Corp of Engineers for Boston and Providence, World War II labs at Harvard and MIT, and New England Naval shore establishments, War of 1812 privateers, Civil War Southern blockade records, original naturalizations and index for six New England states 1790-1906, import and export trade, lighthouses, revenue cutters, vessels, seamen, crew lists, shipping, and wreck reports, east coast passenger arrival lists, War of 1812 service records, World War I expeditionary forces and draft registration records, Chinese immigration, Freedmen's Bureau for African Americans, and Dawes Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes.

Tips
Over 68% of the Regional Archives' records are currently described in ARC at the series level. If you do not find the records you are seeking, please contact the Southeast Region staff.

Guides

 * Guide to Archival Holdings at NARA's Northeast Region, Waltham (Boston) Record group level descriptions of archival holdings including agency administrative history.
 * Federal Records Guide Search NARA's holdings of federal records at a very high level, to identify which record groups may have material about your research topics. Alphabetical index to the Federal Records Guide. Record Groups by topic clusters in the Federal Records Guide.
 * Other Holdings, Guides and Selected Finding Aids for the National Archives Northeast Region.

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a source at the , a similar source may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * National Archives I, Washington DC, census, pre-WWI military service &amp; pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, federal bounty land, homesteads, bankruptcy, ethnic sources, prisons, and federal employees.
 * National Archives II Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, and Treasury all after 1900.
 * Federal Records Center, Pittsfield, for genealogical, local, and national historical records including Canadian Border Crossings.
 * John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, administration biographies and papers, institutional holdings, Earnest Hemingway collection.
 * National Archives Northeast Region (New York) federal records from New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum, Hyde Park, NY, papers of the administration.
 * West Point U.S. Military Acadamy Archives, NY, administrative papers of acadamy offices and committees.

Similar Collections


 * National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO., has millions of military personnel, health, medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services starting with World War I, and federal employee records.
 * Family History Library, Salt Lake City, 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 3.1 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, Mormon records.
 * Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana, premier periodical collection, genealogies, local histories, databases, military, censuses, directories, passenger lists, ethnic, and Canadians.

Neighboring Collections


 * Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, Central Library has county and family histories, census, passenger lists, wills, land, military, directories, newspapers, Ancestry.com. Auburn Avenue Library has African American material.
 * Georgia Archives, Morrow, genealogies, county histories, newspapers, tax digests, private papers, church records, cemeteries, Bible records, a few municipal records, census, maps, land plats, photographs, Georgia Confederate service and pension records, colonial, headright, and bounty land grants, land lottery, and Georgia county records.
 * Atlanta History Center, Kenan Research Center, extensive Georgia family and county histories, Sons of the American Revolution library, holdings for North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama genealogy.
 * Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Atlanta, members, meetings, newsletter, surname queries, links.
 * Jewish Genealogical Soc. of Georgia, Atlanta, family histories, immigration, East Europe, Georgia, North America.
 * Atlanta Area Family History Centers, can order microfilms from Salt Lake City for a small fee.
 * Fulton County Health Department, births since 1896, deaths since 1887.
 * Fulton County Clerk of the Probate Court, marriages and probates since 1854.
 * Fulton County Clerk of the Superior Court, court records, land records, and divorces since 1854.
 * Repositories in surrounding counties: Campbell, Carroll, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, and Spalding.
 * Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, 4 million manuscripts, photos, papers, military, diaries, plantation records.
 * Georgia Genealogical Society, Rome, events, meetings, membership, publications and index, and research tools.
 * Repositories in other surrounding states: Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama.
 * National Archives Southwest Region (Ft. Worth), censuses, military records, passenger lists, Dawes Commission Indian records, 84,000 cubic feet of documents, photos, and maps, slavery, oil, and space program.
 * National Archives Central Plains Region (Kansas City), MO., censuses, military service, pension, and bounty-land applications, bankruptcy and court records, 35,000 cubic feet of documents, photos, and maps.
 * National Archives Great Lakes Region (Chicago), censuses, military pension and bounty-land applications, bankruptcy and court records, naturalization indexes, Indian censuses of MI, MN, WI, soldier home files.
 * National Archives—Regional Branches in other regions.
 * Allen County Public Library (Indiana) has a premier genealogical periodical collection, genealogies, local histories, databases, military, censuses, directories, passenger lists, American Indians, African Americans, Canadians.
 * Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center, Independence, MO, national censuses/indexes, 80,000 family histories, 100,000 local histories, 565,000 microfilms, 7,000 maps, and extensive newspaper clippings.
 * Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research, Houston TX, newspapers, American Civil War, Biography and Genealogy Master Index, Black Studies, Ancestry.com, HeritageQuestOnline, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.