Researchers can now search hundreds of thousands of records containing detailed information about people buried in eastern Massachusetts Catholic cemeteries through a new online database, thanks to a partnership between American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society, the Archive Department of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and The Catholic Cemetery Association of the Archdiocese of Boston, Inc. (CCA).
The Massachusetts: Catholic Cemetery Association Records, 1833-1940 will include an estimated one million names by December 2021, and it is available with a member subscription on AmericanAncestors.org.
But don’t let not having a membership stop you. You can still search a name and see the resulting names and cemeteries, but you won’t see the details.
These records contain lot sales and interments from 20 cemeteries throughout eastern Massachusetts and include information about lot owners, date of burial, and location of burial.
Some of the people represented in these written records may not have purchased a grave marker or their marker may have eroded with time, making this collection essential for research into Catholic burials in this region.
So far, the Catholic Cemetery Association database features information from nine cemeteries: Holy Cross (Malden), Calvary (Waltham), Sacred Heart (Andover), St. George (Framingham), St. James (Haverhill), St. Joseph (Haverhill), St. Jean Baptiste (Lynn), St. Mary (Beverly), and St. Mary (Malden).
Records for eleven more cemeteries will be added throughout 2021. Those cemeteries are St. Francis de Sales (Charlestown), St. Paul (Arlington), North Cambridge Catholic (Cambridge), St. Joseph (Lynn), St. Mary (Lynn), Holy Cross (Malden) (additional volumes), Immaculate Conception (Marlborough), St. Mary (Salem), St. Patrick (Stoneham), Catholic Mount Auburn (Watertown), St. Patrick (Watertown), and Calvary (Winchester).
In addition to the searchable database, American Ancestors and its partners are providing maps of each cemetery to help researchers locate burial plots. Where possible, maps include sections, ranges and, in some cases, narrative description of how headstones are arranged by row and lot number. Special sections for burials of infants, priests and members of religious orders are also noted. Links to the cemetery maps can be found in the database description. Additional maps will be added throughout 2021.
“American Ancestors is proud to offer this new cemetery records database alongside our current project with the Archdiocese — the digitization of sacramental records from 1789 to 1920,” said D. Brenton Simons, president and CEO of American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society. “After the positive feedback we received for our sacramental records collection, this was the next logical step, and we are grateful to the CCA for agreeing to make these records available through our website, AmericanAncestors.org.”
The Catholic records databases, including the cemetery and sacramental records collections, are made possible through the work of American Ancestors volunteers and philanthropic support. In 2017, American Ancestors launched the Historic Catholic Records Fund to support the project.
American Ancestors, also known as New England Historic Genealogical Society, with its national headquarters located in Boston’s Back Bay, is the oldest and largest genealogical society in America. It serves more than 300,000 members.
