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VOLUME 1 - BIRTH RECORDS (A-F)
Order item B527
FORMAT: PRINT 
The book is 295 pages, NOT indexed, names listed alphabetically, soft cover with a plastic comb binding, and available for $49.98 + $3.99 shipping & handling charge (Add $1.00 S&H for each additional volume ordered).

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VOLUME 2 - BIRTH RECORDS (G-Z)
Order item B528
FORMAT: PRINT 
The book is 360 pages, NOT indexed, names listed alphabetically, soft cover with a plastic comb binding, and available for $59.98 + $3.99 shipping & handling charge (Add $1.00 S&H for each additional volume ordered).

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VOLUME 3 - MARRIAGE  RECORDS (A-G)
Order item B529
FORMAT: PRINT 
The book is 312 pages, NOT indexed, names listed alphabetically, soft cover with a plastic comb binding, and available for $49.98 + $3.99 shipping & handling charge (Add $1.00 S&H for each additional volume ordered).

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VOLUME 5 - DEATH RECORDS (A - Z)
Order item B531
FORMAT: PRINT 
The book is 364 pages, NOT indexed, names listed alphabetically, soft cover with a plastic comb binding, and available for $59.98 + $3.99 shipping & handling charge (Add $1.00 S&H for each additional volume ordered).

    The records of births, marriages and deaths in this book include all entries to be found in the books of record kept by the town clerks; in the church records; in the cemetery inscriptions; and in many private records found in family Bibles, etc. These records are printed in a condensed form in which every essential particular has been preserved. All duplication of the town clerks' record has been eliminated, but differences in entry and other explanatory matter appear in brackets. Parentheses are used when they occur in the original record; also to indicate the maiden name of a married woman.     

      When places other than Nantucket and Massachusetts are named in the original records, they are given in the printed copy. Marriages and intentions of marriage are printed under the names of both parties. When both the marriage and intention of marriage are recorded, only the marriage record is printed; and when a marriage appears without the intention being recorded, it is designated by an asterisk. Double-dating is used in the months of January, February and March, prior to 1752, whenever it appears in the original, and also, whenever from the sequence of entry in the original, the date May be easily determined. In all records the original spelling of names is followed, and in the alphabetical arrangement the various forms should be examined, as items about the same family may be found under different spellings. 

HISTORY OF NANTUCKET

     The island’s beginnings in western history can be traced to its reported sighting by Norsemen in the 11th century. But, it was not until 1602 that Captain Bartholomew Gosnold of Falmouth, England sailed his bark Concord past the bluffs of Siasconset and really put Nantucket on the map. The island’s original inhabitants, the Wampanoag Indians, lived undisturbed until 1641 when the island was deeded by the English (the authorities in control of the land from the coast of Maine to New York) to Thomas Mayhew and his son, merchants of Watertown and Martha’s Vineyard.

     When Europeans began to settle in the area around Cape Cod, the island became a place of refuge for regional Indians, as Nantucket was not yet discovered by white men. The growing population of Native Americans welcomed seasonal groups of Indians who traveled to the island to fish and later harvest whales that washed up on shore.

     The history of Nantucket’s settlement did not begin in earnest until 1659 when Thomas Mayhew sold his interest to the "nine original purchasers": Tristram Coffin, Thomas Macy, Christopher Hussey, Richard Swayne, Thomas Bernard, Peter Coffin, Stephen Greenleaf, John Swayne and William Pike – "For the sum of thirty Pounds…and also two beaver hats, one for myself, and one for my wife."

     At this time, the true demise of the island’s Indian population began. The English presence drastically changed the healthy Indian population and, over the next century, the Wampanoag would be weakened by disease, alcohol, and debt servitude.

     Before ultimately settling on the shores of the Great Harbor, the new English settlers moved to the land surrounding the small sheltered harbor of Capaum Pond, on the north shore, where the first white settlement – Sherburne – was established. In 1795, the town (now nestled on the Great Harbor) was named Nantucket (Wampanoag for "faraway land") and became unique in the country as an island, a county and a town all with the same name.

     Shortly after 1700, Quakerism began to take root and, by the end of the eighteenth century, the Society of Friends was the major denomination on the island, a refuge for Quakers being persecuted in other areas of the Bay Colony. The Nantucket Quakers also became extremely influential in business and government matters. The simple, sturdy dwellings have been continuously occupied and stand today in pristine ranks along cobblestone Main Street and other lanes and byways. Later, with the influence generated by the whaling industry, merchants and master mariners built their homes with an eye to impress their neighbors.

     For nearly 100 years – from the mid-1700s to the late 1830s – the island was the whaling capital of the world, with as many as 150 ships making port in Nantucket during its peak. Within decades, however, the new wealth from whale oil drastically took a turn upon the advent of petroleum in 1838 when it began to replace whale oil as an illuminant, and the sperm whale itself had been harder to find. In 1846, a "Great Fire" roared through Nantucket Town under the cover of night, leaving hundreds homeless and impoverished. When gold was discovered in California, shiploads of Nantucketers left to seek new fortunes. In the thirty years 1840 and 1870, census figures document the loss of 60 percent of the island’s population, which plunged from an estimated 10,000 to 4,000. The death knell for whaling had been sounded. The last ship outbound from Nantucket in search of the giant sperm whale left in 1869, never to return to her home port.

     Nantucket was a port-of-call for transatlantic packets and coastal vessels from the early 1800s and, indeed, ranked third only after New York and Boston as a major port. When the whaling era ended, commercial shipping gave way to recreational boating. Daily excursions from the mainland on the graceful old steamers brought a new breed to Nantucket – the summer visitors. The first generation of "developers" on Nantucket sang the praises of pure air and saltwater bathing for health and pleasure. They built cottages and summer houses, advertising them in the Boston and New York newspapers. Island housewives took in summer boarders and great hotels were built in town, as well as on the seashore at Brant Point, Surfside, and Siasconset.

     It was not until around 1880 that the American tradition of summer vacations was firmly established, and it was then that Nantucket was discovered to be just about the ideal spot for vacationing. Once entrenched, tourism became the principle source of income for island residents. It still is, and in the last two decades Nantucket’s tourist season has extended from before Memorial Day to after Columbus Day. Increasingly, visitors are also attracted by the quiet beauty of the off-season, and can be reassured of finding comfortable accommodations no matter what time of year.