There is nothing like seeing it for yourself. For years, I’ve been cloudy about the first records at the Isles of Shoals. Yesterday, I went down to the Dallas Library and located the Microfilm from the Mass Archives. I was glad to find a well organized index for the entire 328 volume set. It is of the card catalog from the archives and occupies some 20 film reels in itself. I found a good number of entries for various Babbs but only had time to pull those for pages 179 & 187-215a. It doesn’t sound like much until you see the condition of the pages and the handwriting on them. Keep in mind most of these are “Copies” that were sent to the Colony for record keeping purposes. The originals are lost to the ages and I can only imagine they wouldn’t have lasted long on in the elements on The Shoals. Together, these records comprise much of what is known about the first few years on the Isles of Shoals, Kittery & York. Interestingly it also includes a list of the residents on the island. I haven’t had the time to try to discern what is written on each page just yet but have made a PDF of all the pages I collected along with a few index pages from the front of the volume. I took great pains to get as high of a quality scan as I could to help with readability. The full file is located at: http://www.myfamily.­com/group/babb/files/­112888717

Happy Reading! Dan

 Repost: Originally posted on Apr 2, 10