Alphabetic Surname Index

Births	Marriages	Deaths
Accouch - Atsatt Bacon - Bush Cameron - Cushman Danford - Durkey Eastis - Ewen Faunce - Fuller Gage - Gurney Hadley - Hyer Iresh - Irish Jackson - Jucket Kankial - Konkeal Labree - Luther Macomber - Myrick Neall - Nye Oglesby - Oman Packard - Purrington Raimond - Ryder Sampson - Swift Taber - Turner Underwood Vail - Voter Waldron - Wyatt Yates - Young Unidentified Negroes	Abott - Ayrs Babbit - Byram Cahoon - Cuttler Daggett - Dwoolf Eames - Ewer Fairbanks - Furlong Gage - Gushee Hach - Hyero Ingerson - Irish Jackson - Jurdon Keach - Kyes La Baron - Lyon Maccumber - Myrick Nash - Nye Oliver - Osborne Packard - Purrington Raiment - Ryder Sachem - Symonds Taber - Turner Vaughan - Voter Wadey - Wyllis Yates - Young Unidentified Negroes	Aikin - Avery Bacon - Burt Camp - Cushman Daggett - Durant Eaton - Ewen Faunce - Fuller Gammons - Gurney Hadley - Hutson James - Jush Keen - Knobb Landers - Luther Mallard - Myrick Ney - Nye Oglesby - Orr Packard - Purrington Randal - Ryder Sampson - Swift Taber - Turner Vaughan - Vaughn Wallace - Wyatt Yates - Young Unidentified Negroes

Chronologic Surname Index

Births	Marriages	Deaths
Accouch - Atsatt Bacon - Bush Cameron - Cushman Danford - Durkey Eastis - Ewen Faunce - Fuller Gage - Gurney Hadley - Hyer Iresh - Irish Jackson - Jucket Kankial - Konkeal Labree - Luther Macomber - Myrick Neall - Nye Oglesby - Oman Packard - Purrington Raimond - Ryder Sampson - Swift Taber - Turner Underwood Vail - Voter Waldron - Wyatt Yates - Young Unidentified Negroes	Abott - Ayrs Babbit - Byram Cahoon - Cuttler Daggett - Dwoolf Eames - Ewer Fairbanks - Furlong Gage - Gushee Hach - Hyero Ingerson - Irish Jackson - Jurdon Keach - Kyes La Baron - Lyon Maccumber - Myrick Nash - Nye Oliver - Osborne Packard - Purrington Raiment - Ryder Sachem - Symonds Taber - Turner Vaughan - Voter Wadey - Wyllis Yates - Young Unidentified Negroes	Aikin - Avery Bacon - Burt Camp - Cushman Daggett - Durant Eaton - Ewen Faunce - Fuller Gammons - Gurney Hadley - Hutson James - Jush Keen - Knobb Landers - Luther Mallard - Myrick Ney - Nye Oglesby - Orr Packard - Purrington Randal - Ryder Sampson - Swift Taber - Turner Vaughan - Vaughn Wallace - Wyatt Yates - Young Unidentified Negroes

The Town of Rochester, Plymouth County, was established June 4, 1686, from common land called Sippican.

June 11, 1714, bounds were established between Rochester and Tiverton.

July 10, 1739, part was included in the new town of Wareham.

April 9, 1836, part was annexed to Fairhaven and bounds were established.

May 14, 1852, part was established as Marion.

April 8, 1853, bounds were established between Rochester and Marion.

May 20, 1857, part was established as Mattapoisett.

April 20, 1864, February 15, 1866, and June 3, 1887, bounds were established between Rochester and Wareham.

Population by Census:

1765	1,939		1820	3,034		1870	1,024
1776	2,449		1830	3,556		1880	1,043
1790	2,644		1840	3,864		1890	1,012
1800	2,546		1850	3,808		1900	986
1810	2,954		1860	1,232		1910	1,090

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

In all items from town records the original spelling is followed, and no attempt is made to correct errors appearing in the records or to harmonize conflicting names or dates.

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

A baptism is not printed, if it occurs within one year after the recorded date of birth, although any variations found in the baptismal record are added to the birth record. But a baptism is printed, if it occurs more than one year after the recorded date of birth of a child of the same name and parents, no attempt being made 10 decide whether the child baptized is identical with the child of the birth record or is another child of the same name.

The birth of a married woman is recorded under her maiden name, if it is known. But if the maiden name cannot be determined, the entry appears under the husband's name. If it is not known whether the surname is that of a married or unmarried woman, ? m. is placed in brackets after the Christian name.

Marriages and intentions of marriage are printed under the names of both parties. When both the marriage and intendion of marriage are recorded, only the marriage record is printed. The differences, so noticeable in many marriage entries in this town, between the original records and the records designated as duplicates are due chiefly to errors made by the town clerks in copying the original records into new books.

Additional information which 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 to show the difference in the spelling of a name in the same entry, to indicate the maiden name of a wife, to enclose an imperfect portion of the original text, and to separate clauses in the original text ----such as the birthplace of a parent in late 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 following the others. Nicknames would appear alphabetically 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.