Elmer I. Shepard Collection : Massachusetts marriages, ca. 1760-1880/ [Elmer I. Shepard]

Notes

The Shepard Collection represents the working files of Elmer I. Shepard. He gathered his material from a number of sources, both primary and secondary, and then combined it on 3 x 5 index cards, arranged by geographic location (county and town) and then by surname, listed under the heads of families. In general, each card contains as much information as Shepard could gather - usually birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, as well as names of spouses and, frequently, areas from and to which family members migrated. Among the primary sources used were Berkshire, Hampshire, and Hampden County probate records, census records, and local newspapers. Published sources include individual family histories, published vital records, town histories and regional histories. At the bottom of each card, generally in abbreviated form, Shepard listed the sources of the information for each family. Through the use of certain symbols, Shepard was able to record additional information: for example, the use of brackets around a date indicates the information has been extrapolated from a source, e.g., age at date of death subtracted from year of death provides an estimated bith year - which will appear in brackets. The mathematical symbols.

The greater than and less than symbols are used to indicate an event that took place before or after the date given (often used when the information was gathered from probate records). "B Pr" followed by a number is the Berkshire probate docket number.

Microfilm of original records at Berkshire Anthenaeum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Subjects

Locality Subjects

Film/Digital Notes