Archive Established for the Massachusetts Society

The renown New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS) now holds the genealogies, minutes, and documents of the Society from our beginnings in 1889 to the present in an arrangement to preserve and disseminate our records long term. This agreement allows our unique collection of our history and of our families and members to provide continuous and permanent value to historians and researchers. This arrangement is exclusive to NEHGS.

NEHGS has pledged to protect and preserve the holdings into the future. It will make the material broadly available electronically so that it is accessible to researchers. (Members of NEHGS may save, archive, download, search, and view the material as well as copy it into applications.) Initially, NEHGS will publish material only up to 1970 to protect information on living members. In each subsequent year, NEHGS will release the next year of material on an ongoing basis. Thus, there will be a 40-year delay between the time a member’s application is approved and when it appears on NEHGS’s website.

As a part of our agreement, NEHGS is free to publish descriptions, catalogs, and other announcements of the availability and contents of the holding. Also, copies of the mateiral will be available to reasearchs in ways consistent with the laws of Massachusetts.

The Society is fortunate to have avoided the loss of our records through mishap or error as we have carried them from office-to-office during our 121 years of existence. Now, with the help of NEHGS, the history of our organization will be protected and available to a worldwide audience. Each year into the future, the Massachusetts Society will add new records to the collection under this agreement.