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	Plymouth County  Massachusetts

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Books About Plymouth County

Here is a selection of genealogical and historical books about Plymouth County and its predecessor, New Plymouth Colony. This is not an exhaustive list, merely one suggesting titles that may be of especial value to, or of interest to, Plymouth County researchers. They are listed by subject. Note that published volumes of town vital records are not listed here as they are listed on their own vital records page. Lists of other books about individual towns can often be found on the individual town sites.

Although books devoted to individual families are not covered here, special mention must be made of the superb volumes published by the Five Generations Project of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

You can find copies of books for sale by using the search engine at Bookfinder.com.

Books that are no longer in copyright can often be found online at Internet Archive Text Archive, Family History Archives or Google Books. Additional books are available through two sites that many libraries offer access to - Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest Online.

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation. This is the first and foremost work concerning the history and early settlers of the colony. Since 1856 it has been published in many editions with varying titles. In 1896 a photographic facsimile of the manuscript was published with an introduction by J. A. Doyle, History of the Plimoth Plantation (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896). Perhaps the definitive scholarly edition was published in two volumes, edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford, History of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1812). A very readable, but sometimes criticized, edition was edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952). A recent edition was edited by Mayflower scholar and author Caleb Johnson, Of Plymouth Plantation (Hardcover and softcover, Philadelphia: Xlibris Corp., 2006).

Eugene A. Stratton, Plymouth Colony, Its History and People, 1620-1691 (Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry Publishing, 1986).

Nathaniel B. Shurtleff (Vols. 1-8) and David Pulsifer (Vols. 9-12), Records of the Colony of New Plymouth In New England, 12 vols. (Boston: The Commonwealth, 1855-1861; repr. in 6 vols., New York: AMS Press, 1968).

Charles H. Simmons, Jr., Plymouth Colony Records (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1996). Vol. 1: Wills and Inventories, 1633-1669 (2 ms. vols. in 1). Portions previously published in MD as Plymouth Colony Wills and Inventories.

Ebenezer W. Peirce, Civil, Military and Professional Lists of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies (Boston: A. Williams & Co., 1881; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1968; Baltimore: Clearfield Co., 1995).

David T. Konig, Plymouth County Court Records 1686-1859, 16 Vols. (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1978-1981; CD-ROM, Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2002).

Ralph V. Wood, Jr., Plymouth County Massachusetts Probate Index 1686-1881 (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1988).

D. Hamilton Hurd, History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1884).

The books listed in this section are general references, each covering many families. Some of them include a much larger area than just the county or colony, but all are extremely useful for county and colony researchers.

Susan E. Roser, Mayflower Increasings (For Three Generations) (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1st Edition 1989, 2nd Edition 1995). Contains birth, marriage and death data, with source citations, for the first three generations of all Mayflower families.

Susan E. Roser, Mayflower Births & Deaths from the Files of George Ernest Bowman at the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992). This work, and the two that follow, have some information that has been supplanted by later research, but all are of major utility to researchers of Mayflower families. Most entries in these two volumes indicate their sources, and many have additional information in Susan's superb notes.

Susan E. Roser, Mayflower Marriages from the Files of George Ernest Bowman at the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1990). Most entries in this volume indicate their sources, and many have additional information in Susan's superb notes.

Susan E. Roser, Mayflower Deeds & Probates from the Files of George Ernest Bowman at the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994). This volume contains hundreds of abstracted deeds and probate files, and lists of hundreds of others.

All of Susan Roser's works listed above were re-issued on Broderbund Software's Family Archive CD #167, which is out-of-print.

Robert Charles Anderson, The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620-1633 (Boston: Great Migration Study Project, New England Historic Genealogical Society, hardcover 2004, softcover 2007). This massively useful volume is an expansion of the sketches of Plymouth Colony immigrants originally published in the three volume set The Great Migration Begins.

Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, 3 vols. (Boston: Great Migration Study Project, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995). This extremely well documented set is the definitive set of sketches of early immigrants, their wives, and their children. It has also been issued on CD-ROM, which is in text format and not paginated, but is fully searchable (Orem, UT: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2000, catalog no. 2089).

Robert Charles Anderson, George F. Sanborn, Jr. and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England 1634-1635 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999-). Vol. I: A-B, 1999; Vol. II: C-F, 2001; Vol. III: G-H, 2003; Vol. IV: I-L, 2005; Vol. V: M-P, 2007. This chronological successor to The Great Migration Begins is still in the process of publication, with a new volume coming out every other year.

Clarence Almon Torrey, New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985; CD-ROM, Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001). A staple of early New England research. Unlike the book, the CD-ROM contains source citations.

Melinde Lutz Sanborn, Third Supplement To Torrey's New England Marriages Prior To 1700 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003). Contains all of the information from Melinde's first two supplements with much additional information, all with source citations.

James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register, 4 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1860-62; repr. Baltimore, many editions).

John Camden Hotten, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality ... Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations 1600-1700 (London: The Author, 1874; repr. New York: Empire State Book Co., 1931; Baltimore: multiple editions).

Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (New York: Grafton Press, 1929; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1962; with additions & correcctions, 1976).

Charles Edward Banks, The Planters of the Commonwealth. A Study of the Emigrants and Emigration In Colonial Times ... 1620-1640 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930; repr. Baltimore, multiple editions).

Charles Edward Banks, Topographical Dictionary of 2885 English Emigrants to New England 1620-1650 (Philadelphia: 1937; repr. Baltimore: Southern Book Co., 1957; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1963).

Charles M. Thatcher, Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts (Middleborough, MA: Middleborough Public Library, 1995). Thanks to the Library this book is downloadable or viewable as a large (> 24 meg) PDF file. It contains over 16,000 transcriptions of gravestones up to the mid-1800s, from 214 cemeteries located in 15 Plymouth and Bristol County towns.

David Allen Lambert, A Guide To Massachusetts Cemeteries (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2002). Provides basic information about every cemetery in the Commonwealth, including any published or manuscript gravestone transcriptions and abstracts.