Alphabetic Surname Index

Births	Marriages	Deaths
Abbot - Austin Bailey - Butts Carey - Crowley Daniels - Dwolf Eldridge - Ely Finney - Freland Gilbert - Green Hall - Huntington Jagger - Johnson Keefe - Krake Lamb - Lyman Manion - Mills Nesbit - Norcott Olmsbory - Ormsby Parsons - Putnam Rodgers - Rudd Scot - Stuart Taylor - Turner Van Deusen - Viets Wadsworth - Wording Unidentified	Abbe - Ayres Babcock - Button Cadwell - Cushman Danforth - Dwolf Eames - Ely Farrar - Fuller Gaines - Green Hale - Hyde Ingham - Ives Jaggar - Judd Kellogg - Knox Lamphere - Lyon Mack - Moses Nash - Nugen Olcott - Owen Palmer - Putnam Randall - Russell Sacket - Sweet Taylor - Tyler Underwood Van Deusen - Viets Wadsworth - Wright	Adams - Austin Baird - Broga Cadwell - Crary Davis - Dwolf Foster - Freeman Gilbert - Gleed Harris - Huntington Jennings - Johnson Kimball - Kingsley Lee - Lyman Maning - Moore Newton - Noyes Osborn Perkins - Putnam Rodgers - Rudd Scott - Streator Taylor - Tuttle Viets Wadsworth - Williams

Chronologic Surname Index

Births	Marriages	Deaths
Abbot - Austin Bailey - Butts Carey - Crowley Daniels - Dwolf Eldridge - Ely Finney - Freland Gilbert - Green Hall - Huntington Jagger - Johnson Keefe - Krake Lamb - Lyman Manion - Mills Nesbit - Norcott Olmsbory - Ormsby Parsons - Putnam Rodgers - Rudd Scot - Stuart Taylor - Turner Van Deusen - Viets Wadsworth - Wording Unidentified	Abbe - Ayres Babcock - Button Cadwell - Cushman Danforth - Dwolf Eames - Ely Farrar - Fuller Gaines - Green Hale - Hyde Ingham - Ives Jaggar - Judd Kellogg - Knox Lamphere - Lyon Mack - Moses Nash - Nugen Olcott - Owen Palmer - Putnam Randall - Russell Sacket - Sweet Taylor - Tyler Underwood Van Deusen - Viets Wadsworth - Wright	Adams - Austin Baird - Broga Cadwell - Crary Davis - Dwolf Foster - Freeman Gilbert - Gleed Harris - Huntington Jennings - Johnson Kimball - Kingsley Lee - Lyman Maning - Moore Newton - Noyes Osborn Perkins - Putnam Rodgers - Rudd Scott - Streator Taylor - Tuttle Viets Wadsworth - Williams

The town of Becket, Berkshire County, was established June 21, 1765, prior to which time it was the new plantation called Number Four.
March 12, 1783, a part of Becket was included in the new town of Middlefield.
February 3, 1798, certain common lands lying between Becket, Blandford, Chester, and Loudon were annexed to Becket.
March 1, 1810, a part of Loudon was annexed to Becket.

Populatoin by Census:

1776,	414		1820,	984		1870,	1,346
1790,	751		1830,	1,063		1880,	1,123
1800,	930		1840,	1,342		1890,	946
1810,	1,028		1850,	1,223		1900,	994
			1860,	1,578

When places other than Becket and Massachusetts are named in the original records, they are given in the printed copy.

In all records the original spelling is followed.

The various spellings of a name should be examined, as items about the same family or individual might be found under different spellings.

Marriages and intentions of marriages are printed under the names of both parties, but the full information concerning each party is given only in the entry under his or her name. When both the marriage and intention of marriage are recorded, only the marriage record is printed; and where a marriage appears without the intention recorded, it is designated with an asterisk.

Additional information whch does not appear in the original text of an item, i.e., any explanation, query, inference, or difference shown in other entries of the record, is bracketed. Parentheses are used only when they occur in the original text, or to separate clauses found there—such as the birth-place of parents, in late marriage records.

A general guide to how to use these pages.

If you are new to this site, or haven't used the site a lot, please be sure to read the rest of this page. Even if you have used this site a lot, a refresher may be helpful due to the changes that have been introduced.

You can research the records alphabetically or chronologically within surname. Images of the pages from which the transcriptions were done, and the title pages, are available for most towns. A list of abbreviations used is available.

Alphabetic - This is the most common way that the published vital records were presented. All of the same given names were arranged chronologically with names that had middle initials or middle names followed the others. Nicknames would appear alphabeticall according to the spelling, i.e. Nabby, the nickname for Abigail, would be with the names beginning with the letter "N."

In this version, the names are sorted based on the most common spelling. Abbie, Abby, Abigail, Knabby, Nabby, etc., will all appear together and will be chronological. Middle initials and middle names have no influence on the order.

Note: There are going to be errors in the indexing of the names. A woman named Abiel may have been recorded as Abby. The indexing will have her with the Abigails. Please notify me with the Contact page about errors and they will be fixed within a couple days.

Chronologic - The chronologic sort will be most helpful with surnames having lots of entries, especially births. Records that had a missing date, or part, have had the missing portions replaced with zeros and will appear ahead of the others.

Page images - The icon at the left of each record is a link to the image of the page from which the transcription was done. The transcriptions are a tool. The image is the source. It is your responsibility to copy the image for your documentation. Also, the title page should be copied. There is a link to the title page in the navigation bar on transcription pages and image display pages.

Abbreviations - Each town had its own abbreviations used in the published records. Most of these are the same. The abbreviations for the headstones (GR), private records (PR), churches (CR), etc. are all different. There is a link to a list of all abbreviations used for the town in the navigation bar of the transcription pages.

Errors - There are two types of errors.

• Errors in the published records - It is known that errors are in the published records. Not many, to be sure, but they are there. Where I have found them, or have been informed and provided sufficient documentation, the records have been annotated. This appears in red at the end of the line.]
• Transcription errors - Even with the best of proofing, errors occur. If you find one, use the Contact link at the top of the page and tell me about the error. I need to have the town name, type of record, page number, what the error is and what it should be. It facilitates matters if you copy and paste the record in error into the e-mail.

Miscellaneous - As the opportunity has provided, I have tried to research names that had only initials or an initial and a surname to find the full names. Where I've been successful I've added the name in red, i.e. J.R. appears as J[ohn] R. or J[ohn] R[ussel].

The alphabetic and chronologic sort orders and many planned improvements require that towns be transcribed. If you can spare two, or more, hours per week to help with the transcribing, write me.

With the exception of the few people helping with transcribing and indexing, I am the only person working on this project. I do all of the technical work. I correct errors. I put transcriptions into final format. I design the pages. This takes a tremendous amount of time and money. If you find this site useful, please donate what you think it is worth to you by going to the donations page.