Description
This guide will begin with a brief history of each period up to statehood in 1791. A
bibliography will follow each section for more in-depth research, if desired. Next will be a
discussion of record group commonly used by researchers. These are histories of these
records and guides to what information you will find there. Every section has a
bibliography.
The second to last section is a listing of all the counties, past and present. There is a
discussion of the records for county, border changes, records locations, and published
material. The extinct counties are given first.
The last section is a town grid listing all places in Vermont. The data included here will
be the name of the town (former names are see references); the year the town was granted,
settled, and organized (when town records commence); county; the probate district the
town is in (historical districts given first); notes about the town; vital records note if
published somewhere; and earliest known churches to roughly 1825. This grid, with a few
changes, I had created for Rhonda R. McClure, ed., Genealogist’s Handbook for New
England Research (Boston, 6th ed., 2022)
Covering:
History, vital records, land records, court records, probate records, adoption records, cemetery records,
census records, church records, military records, government, law, migration/immigration, ethnicity,
eugenics, geography, town history, periodicals, newspapers, almanacs and directories, colleges and
universities, state repositories, genealogical societies, counties and their records, town guide, and N.Y. patents.