Boston Area Biography

Harvard Biography   ---   Boston & New England Biography

Harvard Biography

Biographical Research (Harvard University Archives guide)

Biographical sketches of graduates of Harvard University, by John Langdon Sibley. Cambridge: Charles William Sever, University Bookstore, 1873- .
HOLLIS Records
HathiTrust Full text  vols. 1 (1642-58) - v.3 (1678-89)
HathiTrust Full text  vols v.4 (1690-1700) - 17 (1768-71)
Last volume (v. 18 (1772-1774)) only in paper

The necrology of Harvard college, 1869-1872. Harvard Alumni Association, 126 p.
HOLLIS Record

Necrology of alumni of Harvard College, 1851-52 to 1862-63, by Joseph Palmer. Boston : Printed by John Wilson and Son, 1864, 536 p.
HOLLIS Record

Harvard portraits; a catalogue of portrait paintings at Harvard university, by Laura M. Huntsinger. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard university press, 1936, 158 p.
HOLLIS Record

A list of portraits in the various buildings of Harvard University, by William Garrott Brown. Cambridge: Library of Harvard University, 1898, 52 p. 
HOLLIS Record

Crimson Confederates: Harvard men who fought for the South, by Helen P. Trimpi. Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, 2010, 380 p.
HOLLIS Record
"…Harvard produced 357 alumni who fought for the South -- men not just from the South but from the North as well” offers “unprecedented biographical coverage of the crimson Confederates”.

Harvard Law School Graduates: A Biographical Research Guide

Boston & New England Biography

Biographical Dictionaries

Colonial collegians: biographies of those who attended American colleges before the War for Independence. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society; New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2005. 1 CD-ROM
Location : Harvard University Archives HUG 2881
Location : Widener Harvard Depository L903 .N38 2005x
--Covers through Class of 1774. Includes: Sibley’s Harvard Graduates -- Franklin Bowditch Dexter’s Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College -- James McLachlan et al., Princetonians -- Colonial graduates and attendees of Brown University, Columbia Medical School, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, the College of William and Mary, and William Tennent’s Log College.

Biographical history of Massachusetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, by Samuel Atkins Eliot. Boston (MA), Massachusetts biographical society, 1909. 9 v.
HathiTrust full text

Who's who in New England, 1909, 1916, 1938, 1949.
HOLLIS Record

Who's who in Massachusetts, 1940.
HOLLIS Record

The memorial history of Boston, including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, ed. by Justin Winsor. 4 v. Boston, Ticknor and Company, 1880-81
HOLLIS Record (Widener copies; there are several in other libraries).
HathiTrust Full Text

Periodical Indexes

The New-England historical and genealogical register is available full text (1847-1905) in American Periodicals Series Online, 1740-1900.

Essex Institute Historical collections: subject index to volumes I-LXVII, 1859-1931.
LOCATION: Widener: US 13105.1.4

Index to the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1791-1928. 3 v. Boston: The Society.
LOCATION: Widener: US 12543.1.5 = indexes

Newspaper Indexes

Boston Transcript Index to Obituaries 1875-1930. 5 v.
LOCATION: Widener: RR 683.5
LOCATION: Documents (Lamont): INDEX Film NC 196

Index of obituaries in Boston newspapers, 1704-1800. 3 v.
LOCATION: Andover-Harv. Theol: Ref. F73.25.C6
LOCATION: Widener: RR 683.6.5

Index of obituaries in Massachusetts centinel and Columbian centinel, 1784-1840
LOCATION: Widener: RR 683. 6.10 Library has: 5 v.
HathiTrust full text

Obituaries (not death notices) in the Boston Globe and the Herald for 1932-41 and 1953-2010 are available online in the Obituary Database

Bibliographies

Bibliographies of New England History
LOCATION: Widener: WID-LC F4.Z99 C65 x
--Numbered entries arranged by city/town. Subject index by entry number.