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When I published the Town of Natick, MA Vital Records, I thought, okay, I've done my part....but  you can never do enough and if you have it, share it!  You know - pay it forward...  I was inspired to continue this project when I saw the great work of Jim McGrath and Don Lewis on the Cumberland Co., Nova Scotia GenWeb site.

During his lifetime, my great-uncle, John Arthur "Archie" Morris was a collector.  He collected a 1940-something fire truck, army blankets, kerosene lamps and lots and lots of other miscellaneous "stuff", just in case someone might need it.  When he died in 1986, he had not left a will, and the "family" had the daunting task of cleaning and selling his house and possessions.  No one wanted those "yucky" books that he had collected of Natick Town Reports and Resident Directories.  At that time, I had just started to get into genealogy and I took them because no one wanted them and well, I also collect "stuff".  One of these days, I might get around to getting the family genealogy published, but as I have time, I will also add as much as possible from Archie's collection.

I have decided to start with the 1937 Residence directory of all persons twenty and older.  It is almost as good as a census because included were age, address, occupation, previous year residence (if not the same) and nationality.  The previous website of Vital Records was for the period 1874 to 1913, and many of families in the later period are in this residence directory.  

There were only four precincts in 1937 and I will add each precinct as it is completed. It took a week to type 3300+ residents of precinct one, which appears to have the largest population, and almost that long to solve issues with tables. I have broken out the precincts two ways, alphabetically by surname and alphabetically by street name. I did this because there were still extended families living together in 1937;  parents and grandparents were living with children and vice versa. 

I have copied it exactly as it was, errors and all.  Where I have questioned the information, I have added notes.  Names were still being spelled wrong, often within the same household.  There were several occasions were it appeared that the information included the current and previous year for the same people.

If you find information that doesn't not appear to be accurate, send me an email.  Since I have the original document, I will be able to verify whether I made an error (I really tried not too) or it was published that way.  I will make additional notes to let others know.

This will be a work in progress, so check the "News" section often!

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Copyright © 2001 c.a.beasley

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Last modified: September 14, 2001