Wendy wanted to share ...
Robert and I were able to attend the Visitor's Tour at the New England Historical Genealogical Society in Boston last month.
The tour lasted about an hour and then we were left to explore and research for as long as we wanted. We were kicked out at 5pm when they closed! I barely made a dent! I can go down again and again and have plenty to explore. We ate a couple blocks away after we left. Burger King was out of food (!huh?!! - that's right) so we went next door to a two-story Wendy's and ate. We sat upstairs next to the window and had a great view. Robert watched girls go by!
There were a few options for parking – we ended up paying a discounted Saturday fee of $10 for the day at a garage a couple blocks away. For future trips on a Saturday we may find driving down, parking and splitting the costs for gas/parking etc. will work out better than having to pay to park somewhere and everyone pay for the T. During the week parking is more expensive downtown, so parking and taking the T in may be the better deal. The Green Line does stop a couple blocks over from NEHGS.
New England Historic Genealogical Society, 99 Newbury St., Boston, MA. NEHGS is located in a beautiful building (an old bank) in a beautiful area – Copely Square. When you enter the building you need to sign in at the counter to the left. After walking through a metal detector you are in the Rotunda. Note the beautiful woodwork and old teller windows in the attached picture. There is a fantastic marble staircase through the door on the left. Luckily they have an elevator also...there are eight floors.
4th Floor – Microtext Center. Microfilm readers- you sign in and are assigned a machine....so many records on microfilm – it is an LDS History Center and all their scanned images are on film and housed right at NEHGS. I could have researched land records for one solid day – saw how my ancestor first purchased land in NH, sold it, purchased more, sold that, etc. I came away with copies of several Land Deeds from the 18th and 19th century (only for Alexander Hodge – didn't even get to check other names yet!). Copies are .25/page. I skimmed through several books...was able to rule out quite a bit. :)
They have several public access computers to access their databases.Robert found 6-7 certificates from VT that show birth/death/marriage records and about 3 new names in his line - all from VT. He found more there than he did when he went to VT achieves
The 5th floor houses millions of old manuscripts. The 6th Floor at has research space and a huge amount of family genealogies (I found 8 books for Hodge/Hodges alone...Robert several books on some relatives).
It would be well worth the trip down on a Visitor Tour day. They usually conduct one each month alternating between a week day and a Saturday. Please discuss this at our next meeting to see if it will work out. I definitely want to go down again!