New Hampshire Genealogy

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New Hampshire Genealogy Research Guide

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New Hampshire Genealogy Research Guide

Quick Facts

New Hampshire was one of the original thirteen colonies and became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, on June 21, 1788 — the decisive ninth ratification that put the Constitution into effect. First settled in the 1620s under grants to Captain John Mason, it was governed at various times as part of Massachusetts before becoming a separate royal province. Because so much of its record-keeping happened at the town level, tracing a New Hampshire family means thinking first about the town, then the county, and then the state.

• Capital: Concord, the permanent seat of government since 1808; Portsmouth served as the colonial capital and Exeter as the Revolutionary-era seat.
• Statehood: June 21, 1788, the ninth state, formed from the British Province of New Hampshire.
• Counties: 10. The first five — Rockingham, Strafford, Hillsborough, Cheshire, and Grafton — were created in 1769 and organized in 1771; Coos followed in 1803, Merrimack in 1823, Sullivan in 1827, and Belknap and Carroll in 1840.
• Land type: New Hampshire is a state-land state, not a federal (public-domain) state. Original title passed from the colonial and provincial authorities — town proprietors, the royal governor, and the Masonian proprietors — so there are no federal General Land Office records for New Hampshire; first grants are documented at the town and state level and later transfers at the county level.
• Nickname and motto: the Granite State; the state motto is "Live Free or Die."
• Where records live: most genealogical records sit at the town or county level. Vital records were kept by town clerks (with copies later gathered by the state), deeds are recorded at the county registry of deeds, and probate is handled by the county probate court. New Hampshire has no separate city vital-records system, so vital-records guidance is the same statewide.

Libraries and Archives

New Hampshire's records are concentrated in Concord, which holds state-government records, and in the towns and county seats, where clerks and registers keep deeds, probate, and vital records; libraries and societies across the state and in neighboring Massachusetts round out the picture. The principal repositories include:

• New Hampshire State Archives (Division of Archives and Records Management) — provincial and early state records: colonial court, deed, and probate records, provincial land grants and the Masonian plans, military rolls and abstracts, naturalizations, tax and voter records, and the New Hampshire Register.
• New Hampshire State Library — town and county histories, published genealogies, city directories, town reports, newspapers, and manuscripts.
• New Hampshire Historical Society — a leading research library (founded 1823) strong in printed town vital records, original church records, cemetery inscriptions, and manuscript collections.
• New Hampshire Society of Genealogists — the statewide genealogical society, with research guidance and members' resources.
• American-Canadian Genealogical Society (Manchester) — the leading center in the state for French-Canadian and Acadian research, holding an extensive set of parish repertories and marriage indexes.
• New England Historic Genealogical Society (American Ancestors) — the premier New England society, whose collections and databases are essential for New Hampshire families.
• National Archives at Boston — federal court, naturalization, census, military, and immigration records for New Hampshire.
• University of New Hampshire, Milne Special Collections and Archives (Dimond Library) and Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library — town, family, business, and organizational manuscripts for their regions.
• The FamilySearch Library and its worldwide FamilySearch Centers hold extensive New Hampshire microfilm and digital collections, and county registers of deeds, county probate courts, town clerks, and local historical societies hold records for their own areas.

Major Websites

These sites host digitized New Hampshire records and indexes. Subscription sites are marked ($).

• FamilySearch — free; the backbone finding aid, with the FamilySearch Wiki, catalog, and large digitized collections of New Hampshire vital, town, church, probate, court, land, and naturalization records.
• Ancestry ($) — extensive New Hampshire vital, probate, military, naturalization, court, and directory collections.
• MyHeritage ($) — New Hampshire marriages together with U.S. census, immigration, and newspaper collections.
• Findmypast ($) — New Hampshire marriages and United States–Canadian border-crossing collections.
• American-Canadian Genealogical Society ($) — member databases of French-Canadian and Acadian parish and marriage records.
• University of New Hampshire ScholarWorks — free; the full run of the Laws of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers as downloadable volumes.
• Chronicling America — free; the Library of Congress newspaper archive, including New Hampshire titles.
• Internet Archive and HathiTrust — free; digitized New Hampshire town and family histories, published record abstracts, and law books.
• Find a Grave and BillionGraves — free; cemetery listings, photographs, and transcriptions.

Law and Government

New Hampshire's laws and published state papers explain the jurisdictions and record-keeping that produced genealogical records, and they are themselves among the richest printed sources for the colonial and early national periods.

• The Laws of New Hampshire (ten volumes) reprint the statutes from the Province Period (from 1679) through the Revolutionary and constitutional periods into the 1830s, with historical notes and appendices; free on the University of New Hampshire ScholarWorks repository.
• The New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers (about forty volumes, published from the 1860s onward) are a foundational genealogical source, gathering town charters and town papers, military rolls, provincial probate and deed records, the Masonian papers, and the 1776 Association Test; free volume by volume on the Internet Archive, for example the town-charter volume (Volume 24) and the Masonian volumes (Volume 27, Volume 28, and Volume 29), and as a complete set on University of New Hampshire ScholarWorks.
• Colonial and provincial court records, the New Hampshire Register, and legislative papers are held by the New Hampshire State Archives, and many town and county histories that summarize local law and officeholders are digitized on the Internet Archive and HathiTrust.

Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)

New Hampshire town clerks recorded births, marriages, and deaths from the early-to-mid 1600s — some town registers begin in the 1630s for births and the 1650s for marriages — but coverage was uneven. A law of 1866 required town clerks to report vital events to the state; compliance was limited (fewer than half of events were recorded) until the 1880s, and the state Bureau of Vital Records was organized in 1905, when towns were asked to send copies of their earlier records to build a statewide set. Records from about 1901 onward are the fullest. Because there is no separate city system, this guidance applies across the state.

Access is set by state law: birth records more than 100 years old and marriage, divorce, and death records more than 50 years old are open for genealogical research; more recent records are restricted, and a fee applies to order copies from the Division of Vital Records Administration or a town clerk. Use these online indexes and record sets:

• Births: New Hampshire Birth Records, Early to 1900 is free on FamilySearch; New Hampshire Birth Records, 1631–1924 ($) is on Ancestry.
• Marriages: New Hampshire Marriage Records, 1637–1947 is free on FamilySearch; also on Ancestry ($) as part of its Marriage and Divorce Records, and on MyHeritage ($).
• Deaths: New Hampshire Death Records, 1654–1947 is free on FamilySearch; New Hampshire Death Records, 1678–1974 ($) is on Ancestry.
• Divorces: divorce was handled by the Superior Court; New Hampshire Divorce Certificates, 1850–1969 ($) is on Ancestry, and an index to earlier divorces and annulments is free on FamilySearch.
• Town copies: where the state set is incomplete, the original town record may survive; New Hampshire, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1636–1947 is free on FamilySearch, and many town vital records to 1900 are published and digitized on the Internet Archive.

History and Timeline of Major Events

Key dates that shaped New Hampshire's jurisdictions and records:

• 1622 — The Crown grants land between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers to John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges.
• 1623 — The first settlements are made at Odiorne's Point (present-day Rye) and at Dover.
• 1629 — Mason and Gorges divide their grant; Mason takes the portion south of the Piscataqua, the Province of New Hampshire, the root of the later Masonian claim.
• 1630s — Portsmouth (Strawbery Banke) is settled, and Puritans from Massachusetts found Exeter and Hampton.
• 1641–1679 — New Hampshire is joined to and governed by Massachusetts, with home rule left to the towns.
• 1675–1676 — King Philip's War strikes the frontier settlements.
• 1679 — New Hampshire is made a separate royal province.
• 1719 — Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settle Londonderry, bringing linen and potato culture.
• 1740–1741 — The Crown settles the Massachusetts boundary in New Hampshire's favor, and Benning Wentworth becomes governor of a fully separate royal government.
• 1745 — New Hampshire men serve in the expedition against Louisbourg.
• 1749–1764 — Governor Wentworth issues town grants west of the Connecticut River (the New Hampshire Grants), sparking a long dispute with New York over the future Vermont.
• 1769 — The first five counties are created (organized in 1771).
• 1775–1783 — The Revolutionary War; New Hampshire is the only original colony not invaded, its men fight at Bennington in 1777, and the 1776 Association Test records the adult male population.
• 1788 — On June 21 New Hampshire ratifies the U.S. Constitution as the ninth and decisive state.
• 1802, 1806, and 1813 — A series of "Christmas fires" destroys much of Portsmouth's business district, prompting a shift to brick construction.
• 1803 — Coos County is created in the far north.
• 1808 — Concord becomes the permanent state capital.
• 1819 — The Toleration Act ends town tax support for the Congregational church.
• 1823, 1827, and 1840 — Merrimack (1823), Sullivan (1827), and Belknap and Carroll (both 1840) counties are created.
• 1830s–1840s — Railroads reach the state and the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company drives the rise of Manchester as a major mill city.
• Mid-1800s onward — French-Canadian immigration from Quebec fills the mill towns of Manchester, Nashua, Berlin, Somersworth, and Dover, followed by Irish, Greek, and Polish arrivals.

Census Records and Substitutes

Federal censuses were taken every ten years from 1790 through 1950, and New Hampshire appears in all of them; the 1790 return survives, while the 1890 federal census was almost entirely destroyed nationwide. They are free on FamilySearch and on the National Archives 1950 census site, and are also searchable on Ancestry ($) and MyHeritage ($). Two federal years are incomplete for New Hampshire: several Rockingham and Strafford towns are missing from 1800, and the whole of Grafton County and parts of Rockingham were lost from 1820.

New Hampshire did not take regular decennial state censuses, but several colonial and provincial enumerations survive, most of them printed in the Provincial and State Papers and held at the New Hampshire State Archives:

• 1732 and 1744: early provincial counts tied to taxation, useful mainly for heads of household and town population.
• 1767 and 1773: provincial censuses ordered by the royal governor, arranged by town with demographic categories rather than full name lists.
• 1776 Association Test: the outstanding Revolutionary-era name list, recording the men over twenty-one who signed (and those who refused) a loyalty pledge — the most comprehensive roster of the adult male population before the 1790 federal census; indexed as Inhabitants of New Hampshire, 1776 ($) on Ancestry.
• 1786: a later inventory and enumeration, likewise printed in the state papers.

Where a census is missing, the best substitutes are city directories for Manchester, Concord, Portsmouth, and Nashua (on Ancestry's U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995 ($) and on the Internet Archive), town tax inventories and rate lists, the 1776 Association Test, town proprietors' records, and voter checklists. The American Ancestors collection New Hampshire: Miscellaneous Censuses and Substitutes, 1640–1890 ($) gathers many of these together.

Church Records

Because civil registration was late and uneven, church records are the most important substitute for vital records before the twentieth century. The Congregational church was the established, town-supported church of colonial New Hampshire and the richest early source, until the Toleration Act of 1819 ended tax support; Presbyterian congregations followed the Scotch-Irish settlement at Londonderry, and Baptist, Anglican and Episcopal, Methodist, and Quaker (Friends, notably around Dover and Weare) records are all valuable. With French-Canadian and Irish immigration, the Roman Catholic church grew rapidly, and many of its parish registers are in French.

• New Hampshire, Church Records, 1771–1905 is free on FamilySearch, and thousands of individual congregational registers can be found through the FamilySearch Catalog by county and town.
• The New Hampshire Historical Society holds one of the largest collections of original Protestant church records in the state, and the American-Canadian Genealogical Society is the key resource for Catholic and French-Canadian parish records.
• Catholic sacramental records are held by the individual parishes and by the Diocese of Manchester; records that predate the diocese may be found with the neighboring dioceses that once had jurisdiction.

Court Records

New Hampshire's courts changed repeatedly, and their records reach well beyond lawsuits into estates, guardianships, naturalizations, and name changes. The main courts a researcher encounters are:

• Probate Court (now the Probate Division of the Circuit Court), in each county since the counties were organized — wills, administrations, and guardianships.
• Superior Court of Judicature and its successor Superior Court — the high trial court from the provincial period onward, whose clerks hold civil case files, divorces, and (before 1906) many naturalizations.
• Colonial county courts — the Court of Quarter Sessions and the Court of Common Pleas (Inferior Court) — which handled county administration, roads, licensing, and minor civil and criminal matters.

Provincial and early state court records (from the 1630s) and county superior and inferior court records into the 1900s are held by the New Hampshire State Archives; colonial court records for 1640–1692 are printed in the state papers. Ancestry offers New Hampshire Government Petitions, 1700–1826 ($) and New Hampshire Court Rosters, 1800–1961 ($), and current court information is available through the New Hampshire Judicial Branch.

Ethnic/Minority Records

New Hampshire's population was shaped by early English and Scotch-Irish settlement and, later, by immigration to its mill towns; knowing where a group settled points to the records most likely to document a family.

• French-Canadians. The largest and most distinctive immigrant group, drawn from Quebec to the mills of Manchester, Nashua, Berlin, Somersworth, and Dover from the mid-1800s. The American-Canadian Genealogical Society in Manchester is the central resource, with parish repertories and marriage indexes that connect New Hampshire families back to Quebec parish registers.
• Scotch-Irish (Ulster Scots). The 1719 Presbyterian settlement of Londonderry and its offshoots are among the most historically important in the state; Presbyterian church and town records are the key sources.
• Irish. Present from the colonial era and greatly increased by nineteenth-century immigration to the cities; Catholic parish and cemetery records are central.
• Greeks and Poles. Later arrivals to the mill communities of Manchester and Nashua, documented through parish, fraternal, and naturalization records.
• Indigenous peoples. The Pennacook and Western Abenaki, once led by Passaconaway, occupied the Merrimack and Connecticut valleys; most were displaced, but they appear in colonial records, treaties, and town histories.
• African Americans. People of African descent have lived in New Hampshire since the colonial period, including enslaved people at Portsmouth. The Portsmouth African Burying Ground and the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire document this history, and federal Freedman's Bank and Freedmen's Bureau records reach some New Hampshire families.

Immigration and Naturalization

Portsmouth was a colonial seaport, but New Hampshire was never a major immigration port of entry; most newcomers arrived through Boston and came overland, and French-Canadians crossed overland and by rail from Quebec. The most useful arrival records are therefore the Canadian border crossings, whose "St. Albans" district records cover the entire northern border, including arrivals bound for New England.

• Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S., 1895–1960 ($) is on Ancestry; United States, Border Crossings from Canada to United States, 1894–1954 is free on FamilySearch, and the same records are on Findmypast.

Naturalization. Before 1906 any court of record — federal, state, or county — could naturalize, so records are scattered; after 1906 the process was federalized. Key finding aids are the free New Hampshire, County Naturalization Records, 1771–2001 and New Hampshire, United States Naturalization Records, 1906–1993 on FamilySearch, the free United States, New England Petitions for Naturalization Index, 1791–1906, and New Hampshire, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1832–1945 ($) on Ancestry. The National Archives at Boston holds the federal naturalizations, and the New Hampshire State Archives holds county naturalization records.

Land Records

As a state-land state, New Hampshire granted land itself rather than through the federal government, so there are no General Land Office records. First title flowed from three sources — the colonial and provincial governors, the town proprietors, and the Masonian proprietors — and later transfers between individuals are recorded as deeds at the county level.

The major land entities.

• The Masonian Patent and Masonian Proprietors. The heirs and, from 1746, the purchasers ("the Masonian proprietors") of Captain John Mason's 1629 claim controlled a distinctive sixty-mile arc reaching inland from the seacoast, and they granted many of the towns in the central part of the state. Their charters and papers fill Volumes 27–29 of the Provincial and State Papers, free on the Internet Archive (Volume 27, Volume 28, Volume 29).
• The Wentworth town grants (New Hampshire Grants). Governor Benning Wentworth chartered numerous towns, including grants west of the Connecticut River that became the Vermont controversy; the town charters are printed in Volumes 24–26 of the state papers (Volume 24).
• Town proprietors. As throughout New England, each town's land was first held in common by its proprietors and then divided among them; the proprietors' records — grants and divisions of the common lands — are held by the towns, by historical societies, and in the town papers of the state papers.

Where the records are kept.

• County level: deeds and mortgages are recorded by each county's Registry of Deeds; all ten counties' recorded deeds are searchable, with images, through the statewide portal at nhdeeds.org.
• State level: the New Hampshire State Archives holds the province deeds and provincial land grants (roughly 1623–1771) and the Masonian plans.

Online, New Hampshire deeds are reached through the FamilySearch Catalog by county, and FamilySearch Full-Text Search makes many unindexed deeds, grants, and proprietors' records searchable by every name they contain, including grantors, grantees, witnesses, and neighbors.

Military Records

New Hampshire men served in every American conflict from the colonial wars onward, and the Provincial and State Papers preserve much of the early service record.

• Colonial wars: King Philip's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War (including the 1745 Louisbourg expedition), and Lovewell's War of 1725 are documented in the state papers and in Chandler E. Potter's Military History of the State of New Hampshire, digitized on the Internet Archive; Robert Rogers, of the Concord area, led the famous rangers of the French and Indian War.
• Revolution: the muster and pay rolls fill Volumes 14–17 of the state papers, and the 1776 Association Test names the men who pledged support; New Hampshire, Revolutionary War Records, 1675–1835 is free on FamilySearch and also on Ancestry ($).
• War of 1812: state militia rolls are held by the New Hampshire State Archives, and federal service records are on Ancestry ($).
• Civil War: the standard published source is Augustus D. Ayling's Revised Register of the Soldiers and Sailors of New Hampshire in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1866, free on the Internet Archive and HathiTrust and searchable on Ancestry ($); enlistment papers, muster rolls, and pension records drawn from the state archives are in New Hampshire Civil War Service and Pension Records, 1861–1866 ($), and the many published regimental histories are digitized on the Internet Archive.

Probate Records

Probate — wills, administrations of intestate estates, and guardianships of minors — is among the richest sources for family relationships. The dividing line falls at the organization of the counties around 1771.

• Before the counties: the royal governor and the provincial court exercised probate jurisdiction, and the early records — largely filed at Portsmouth and Exeter — are now at the New Hampshire State Archives. The provincial probate records for 1635–1771 are abstracted in Volumes 31–39 of the state papers, free on the Internet Archive (for example Volume 31) and searchable on Ancestry ($).
• Since the counties: a county Probate Court proves wills, grants administrations, and appoints guardians; the estate file — petition, will or administration, bond, and inventory — usually names the heirs.

Online, New Hampshire, County Probate Records, 1660–1973 and New Hampshire, County Probate Estate Files, 1769–1936 are free on FamilySearch and browsable by county, and New Hampshire, Wills and Probate Records, 1643–1982 ($) on Ancestry is name-searchable across the counties. FamilySearch Full-Text Search also makes many unindexed wills and estate files searchable by every name they contain.

Tax Records

Tax lists place a family in a specific town and year and are valuable substitutes where censuses or deeds are missing; several consecutive years can reveal when a young man came of age, moved, or died and left heirs.

• Colonial and provincial taxes: province tax lists and the town "invoices" and rate lists, along with later assessment rolls, are held by the New Hampshire State Archives and by individual town clerks; some early lists are printed in the state papers.
• Federal Direct Tax of 1798: surviving assessments for several New Hampshire towns have been published, and they are especially useful for the Strafford-area towns that are missing from the 1800 federal census.
• Federal income and license taxes: the Civil War–era assessments appear in U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862–1918 ($) on Ancestry, and the New Hampshire lists for 1862–1874 are also free on FamilySearch as part of its United States Internal Revenue Assessment Lists.