All the best wishes--Hope, Peace, Joy

Family treasures in the Beverly, Massachusetts, town records

Years ago, Daniel Driscoll in the Beverly, Massachusetts, town clerk's office provided a series of records about my early Preston family. Many of these were oversized family pages or family groups. 

At the time, I'd not yet heard the term "Genealogical Proof Standard." Still today, I don't know the full history of these amazing early records, but the entries about my family include references to vital and church records, deeds, tax, probate, court records.  

Even though I have conducted separate research about the families, every time I work with these records, I feel like I'm cheating. 

The records run across two pages of what I assume to have been a ledger. They are of such size and composition that even after the family pages had been scanned and stitched, the file sizes I worked with made sharing difficult. 

Upper snippet from one page of the Beverly, Massachusetts, town records/family pages.

Thanks to FamilySearch's digitization efforts, I've been able to located those oversized records in the new collection, "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Towns Records, 1579-2001." The collection now represents 1,239,396 images, originally filmed in the 1970s by the Genealogical Society of Utah.  

The records I'm writing about today are found by browsing the collection--navigate to Essex (County) > Beverly (town). There are 13 different titles in the Beverly section collection.  The oversized family records are part of the title, "[Beverly] Births, marriages, deaths 1653-1890." 

• Records: Births, Marriages & Deaths, A to F, 1653-1890, Town of Beverly Vol. 1 (begins on filmed image 5 of 589)
• Records: Births, Marriages & Deaths, F to M, 1653-1890, Town of Beverly, Vol 2 (begins on filmed image 158 of 589)
• Records: Births, Marriages & Deaths, M to S, 1653-1890, Town of Beverly, Vol 3 (begins on filmed image 301 of 589)
• Records: Births, Marriages & Deaths, T to W, 1653-1890, Town of Beverly, Vol 4 (begins on filmed image 478 of 589)

The Presson/Preston family entries are found in Volume 3, but for our family connections and purpose, the links below will help:

Vol 3, p. 78 (filmed image 385 of 589), for families* as: 

• William Preston and Priscilla Randall of Saco, Maine 
• Nehemiah Preston and Abigail Allen, m. 1714
• Nehemiah Preston and Agnes Bradford, m. 1742
• Benjamin Preston and Thankful Larcom, m. 1767

Vol 3 p. 79 (filmed image 386 of 589), for families* as: 

• Randall Preston and Susanna Stone, m. 1723
• John Preston and Priscilla Ober, m. 1755
• William Preston and Mary Raymond, m. 1728

Vol 3 p. 80 (filmed image 387 of 589), for families* as: 

• Benjamin Preston and Abigail Knowlton, m. 1794
• Benjamin Preston and Hannah Rust
• Benjamin Preston and Sarah Poland
• Joseph K. Preston and Mary Marshall 
• Nehemiah Preston and Mary H. Cleaves 

Vol. 3, p. 82 (filmed image 390 of 589), for families* as:

• William Preston and Hannah Porter
• Hiram Preston and Lydia Murray

As with all records, these wonderful family pages/groups contain errors and omissions, but they are truly treasures. 

*Please refer to the linked images/page entries for the precise spelling and dates. 

P.S. to Dan Driscoll. Thank you for taking the time to write notes and page numbers on the copies you sent. If not for your notes, I would surely have been reluctant to navigate the almost 600 images in order to locate the links to these wonderful entries.