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Thursday, May 20, 2010

NOTHING VENTURED.....

The other day my friend and co-worker Laura Vona posted over on her
blog about the success she'd had obtaining records of her grandfather's
employment as a Boston police officer. It got me thinking that perhaps I
should find out if there were any records about my maternal
great-grandfathers who had worked for the City of Boston and if there
was a way I might get copies of them.

So I went to the official City of Boston website which is at
http://www.cityofboston.gov/ and in the "Departments" droplist found
the "Archives and Records" page. Along with the description of the
duties and responsibilities of the department, I found a link to the Guide
to the Records in the City of Boston Archives but couldn't find
anything there in regards to records of city employees. So I made use
of the "Contact Us" link for Archives and Records. In the message box
I included the names of my great grandfathers and the information on
them being city employees that I had gleaned from the 1910, 1920 and
1930 Federal Censuses along with their home addresses as given on the
censuses.I asked if the city kept records form employees from that far
back, and if so, how would I be able to obtain copies of them.

I did all this last night but don't expect to get a reply today. It might not
pan out but it was worth asking, wasn't it?

After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

4 comments:

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

I loved Laura's story. I left her some comments on her blog. The Boston Police archivist loves working with genealogists, and she recently published a book.

Claudia said...

Feel like a kid waiting for the package the day after you sent for an item????

Bill West said...

Thanks, Heather and Claudia for the comments!

Claudia-Yes. I've checked my email about 6 times already today!

Laura Vona said...

Go Bill! I am so happy that something I posted may prove to be useful to someone else! Can't wait to hear how the query turns out! : )