Boston Deaths, 1700-1799

From the introduction:

"During the 18th century, the Boston town clerk did not keep records of deaths. There are numerous sources in which death and burial records can be found: newspaper obituaries and death notices, church records, sexton's burial bills, private diaries, published Bible records, vital records of other Massachusetts towns, manuscripts at Boston City Hall Archives and the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and cemetery records. While much of this material is in print, it can take an enormous amount of time and effort to search all the possibilities. The purpose of this book, and the companion volume on Boston cemeteries, is to save the researcher time by identifying the source or sources in which the death of a particular person may be found.

This book is primarily a reference work to allow researchers to easily find death records, notices, and obituaries. We include the pertinent information, if given, from each source: name of deceased, date of death, and the code for the source. Some additional biographical information or details on the death may be found in the original sources. There are duplicates of many entries, especially well known people, but we present them all since there may be different or contradictory information from the different sources. In some cases we have the death date, the burial date, and the date of the death notice from a paper for one individual.

As the compilers were preparing the final copy of this work, it came to their attention that the Colonial Society of Massachusetts were preparing for publication The Records of the Boston Almshouse. Contained in these records are the deaths of those who died there, many of which are not contained in the following compilation."

A key to the references cited is contained in the introduction to the original book, found here: Introduction to Boston Deaths, 1700-1799.

This reference contains 41,880 records, including duplicate reports of deaths from different sources. Over 320 different sources are cited.

Read full introduction

These two volumes are also available in our Boston Research Library, call number: F73.25 D86 1999.

To locate additional genealogy and local history resources, search our library catalog.