Sunset at Gowanus Bay

Sunset at Gowanus Bay
Sunset at Gowanus Bay, Henry Gritten, 1851

Monday, July 18, 2022

Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society at FamilySearch.org

 The Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society was a twice a year publication of the New Jersey Historical Society which began in 1845 with Series 1, Volume 1 and ended in 1966 with Volume 84. While somewhat difficult to access in the past, the volumes are available on the FamilySearch.org website through their online catalog under the title, "Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society." Digital images of the various volumes can be accessed and viewed on a home computer without the need to travel to a local Family History Library Center. While FamilySearch.org does not charge for a subscription, you must register with an account in order to access digital images.

I have not been able to locate the existence of a cumulative table of contents for the entire series, and I doubt that one has been created. The individual issues, which can be accessed from the page linked above, do include a table of contents for that issue, and fortunately, the individual issues can be searched, one at a time, with a search tool provided by FamilySearch. For example, here is Series 1, Volume 1, and you will find in the bar above the image, that familiar magnifying glass icon that represents a search tool. You will have to conduct a search on each volume separately. There is no search tool that encompasses the entire collection. And, to my knowledge, there is no published collective index, or list of article titles. Update to this paragraph: As mentioned in the Comment of July 19, 2022 found below, an index to the issues of the Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society HAS been created by Donald Sinclair (1996). See this webpage at the NJHS Proceedings Wikipage. The index is cited as, Sinclair, Donald (comp.) An index to the magazine New Jersey history: Through 1966 called Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society : volumes 1 through 110, 1845-1992. (New Jersey Research Series, volume 4) (Newark Public Library, Upland Press, 1996) Apparently out of print, but available at libraries. In addition there is an online table of contents available for New Jersey History, which is a NJHS publication that picks up on the discontinued Proceedings. See no. 14 at "Publications of the NJHS".

Scattered among the articles within the eighty or so volumes are vital records. This is what brought my attention to this resource. While many New Jersey vital records, I'm thinking colonial period Dutch and German church records here, were published elsewhere and for many years have been accessible, those of the Baptism records of the New Brunswick First Reformed Dutch Church have not been. In the past I relied on online transcriptions compiled by others. While most of these are reliable, I still prefer to see, first hand, the source that they were transcribing. The New Brunswick First Reformed Dutch Church Baptisms, 1717-1820 were published in New Series Volume 11, no. 2 (Apr 1926) and begin at page 205 of that volume. You can download the entire volume in PDF form which does make it easier to work with on a lap top or desk top computer.

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