Wednesday, January 5, 2011

National Publications Highlight The Church Book North Parish

I am pleased to announce that my article entitled Massachusetts Mystery, The Story of a Lost Church Book has been published in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly December 2010 issue. (Volume XXV, Number 4, Pg 193)

This article gives background about North Parish and details The Church Book 1720-1806 – the original record for the North Parish, hand written by Reverend Daniel Putnam and Reverend Eliab Stone. The Church Book contains vital records for births and marriages for the inhabitants of North Parish during this time period. It also contains writings concerning regular church business as well as the Church Covenant and the list of founding members.

Previously, I painstakingly digitally photographed The Church Book into 133 high resolution images and placed on them on a CD – totaling 620MB - making each page easy to zoom and read details. It includes an index. The CD is available at Massachusetts Historic Genealogical Society on Newbury Street in Boston. The information about the CD has been published in their American Ancestors magazine (Spring 2010, Vol 11, no. 2, pg.58).

The CD of The Church Book is also available at the Congregational Library at the Congregational Christian Historical Society on Beacon Street in Boston, where the original document is carefully preserved on permanent loan.

I plan to provide a CD of The Church Book to the North Reading Flint Memorial Library very soon.