(Family) History Hunting

Posted March 11, 2016 by Tara Pealer

Last week, my grandfather called up my mother, who called up me because I live in Boston. He needed a favor.

For years, my grandfather has been trying to hunt down family records to find out where the family immigrated from in Ireland, and he was able to trace them back to Boston sometime in the early 1870’s. Boston has the original records of marriage and ship arrivals in the Massachusetts State Archives, which is on the UMass campus. He was hoping I could find some of the original records concerning the marriage of my great-great-great grandparents, and maybe any records of their arrival.

Of course I said yes. He also said the boring grandfatherly stuff you’d expect him to say like “Don’t let it distract you from your schoolwork” but I have no control when it comes to research. I did find an 1871 marriage record, and I do have a copy of it which gave him extra information (and then he pulled me off of it because “you need to focus on your schoolwork”). I told him that if he needed anything else, I would love to go back.

There were several reasons for this of course:

One, it’s a gorgeous building. I went on a cloudy day and it looked positively mysterious–see?

Two, I’ve never actually used an archive, so I was very excited and kind of nervous. I imagined a large room of dust and old books, even though as an LIS student I know that image is definitely not what archives look like. The process to get a researcher pass was simple, the staff was kind and helpful, and so were the other researchers.

Three, I used a microfiche reader. I read old records on microfilm. I understand many people may not be excited about this, but I love learning new skills, and it was really cool to use ‘old’ technology to find out about my family’s past.

Another amazing fact about the Mass State Archives is that the building also houses the Commonwealth Museum, which is gorgeously done and exemplary for a museum its size. The museum’s exhibits are highly interactive, and very informative. (Here’s a picture of the ‘Arbella’ mock-up at the entrance to the museum section of the building).

I definitely loved checking it out, since it’s super easy to get to and I had a wonderful time I know I’ll be back (even if Grandpa doesn’t need anything new).