If the Barbour Index is unquestionably the starting point for Connecticut research, we can now say with equal confidence that it must share the spotlight with a new publication: Linda MacLachlan’s Finding Early Connecticut Vital Records: The Barbour Index and Beyond. The product of a 10-year examination of Connecticut vital records, this identifies the original sources of the millions of early Connecticut vital records abstracted in the Barbour Index. It names hundreds of books, manuscripts, and articles not referenced by Barbour, and points the researcher to thousands of additional sources for early Connecticut births, deaths, and marriages. Finding Early Connecticut Vital Records is, in fact, a complete inventory of Connecticut vital records, and no collection can be complete without it.

Finding Early Connecticut Records contains a town-by-town bibliography of both Barbour’s actual sources for the information in his Index and all vital records not in the Barbour Index that may be in church and cemetery records, town records, and published sources. For each town we are given the Family History Library (FHL) film numbers for derivative and original sources that have been microfilmed, and other source information for those that have not. These town chapters also note (in bold face) discrepancies and other town records that Barbour did not abstract. Later sections list other sources for birth, marriage, and death information, such as church records, cemetery transcriptions (including those found in the famous Hale Collection), and available print sources, including secondary compilations of town vital statistics from multiple sources.

This new reference work, available in both print and hardcover editions, also includes equivalent information for six other pre-1851 Connecticut towns that Barbour did not index: Cromwell, Easton, New Britain, New Fairfield, Seymour, and Trumbull. Many of the vital records substitutes cited in the work and not included by Barbour quote the applicable catalog description of the record’s contents. A final component of each chapter includes compilations of divorce records and Bible records, as well as compilations containing Connecticut vital records. A work as complex as this one would not be complete without a substantial Introduction explaining the history and nature of the Barbour Index and its limitations, and a detailed subject index.

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As important as this work proved, however, it was not without certain flaws. Records of some counties were published in fragments and scattered among various volumes, while the inferior quality of the printing aggravated the problem even further. What is more, as each of the thirty-four volumes was separately indexed, searching for names was needlessly protracted.

To rectify these deficiencies, the contents of Virginia Colonial Abstracts have been rearranged, re-typed, and consolidated in three paperback volumes, each with its own master index. Thus resurrected, Virginia Colonial Abstracts is now the major genealogical resource it always promised to be.

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This work from British Isles and immigration expert Dr. David Dobson assembles the complete collection of those birth, marriage, and death records from The Scots Magazine between the years 1739 and 1826. Alphabetically arranged by surname, each “vital record” transcription gives the subject’s full name; date and place of birth, marriage, or death; and a citation to the appropriate volume and page number of The Scots Magazine. Many of the entries also specify such additional information as the names of spouses, parents, or other relatives; occupation (often military or political service); circumstances of death; etc. In view of the scarcity of 18th-century official vital records for Ireland, researchers with such forebears will welcome this “buried” collection of roughly 2,000 Irish births, marriages, and deaths.

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The work at hand is a transcription of the earliest vital records of St. Louis parish. The transcribers relied on both the original parish records books in the Archives of the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee and microfilm copies. Most of the original records were recorded in Latin, with marginal notations, usually in French. The transcribers have divided the materials into alphabetically arranged sections for birth, marriage, and death. (The marriage record section is further subdivided into separate listings arranged by both bride and groom.) The birth records, by far the longest part of the book, consist of nearly 8,000 entries, each indicating the given name of the newborn, dates of birth and/or baptism, and the names of parents and often the godparents. The marriage records, of which there are about 1,200, state the names of the bride and groom, names of their parents, and date of the marriage. The roughly 1,000 death records furnish the full name of the deceased, date of death and/or burial, age at death, and in many cases, the cemetery, spouse’s name, and names of parents. By any measure this is an important contribution to the genealogical record of early Wisconsin, for which researchers can give thanks to its fastidious compilers.

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