Series consists of Massachusetts public records created and/or preserved successively by the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay (1629-1686, 1689-1692), the Dominion of New England (1686-1689), the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (1692-1774), the Provincial Congresses (1774-1775), the revived provincial government (i.e., the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1775-1776, and the State of Massachusetts Bay, 1776-1780), and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (from 1780). Creating agencies include the General Court, Council, governor, state secretary, treasurer, boards, commissions, and various judicial courts. As a created series, the Massachusetts archives collection in fact contains documents that by provenance supplement or duplicate holdings of other record series held by the Massachusetts Archives. For a complete list of such series see: Massachusetts. Office of the Secretary of State. Massachusetts archives collection. Also entered under this heading are series that have been described entirely on the basis of documents found in the Massachusetts archives collection. Complete contents of such series (as so far determined) and partial contents of others are listed in the Massachusetts archives collection database, an electronic index to documents from selected series volumes. Each document entry contains vol. no., beginning page (i.e., document) and inclusive page nos., record series no./title (with creating agency code/name), legislative or executive journal citation, creation and/or other date, summary of contents, and lists of referenced: (1) geographic locations, (2) personal names, and (3) topics (including Indian tribal names, newspaper titles, ship names, and corporate bodies); also data on document generation (original, attested copy, transcript), signatories/signatures, and seals. Database is searchable by date, series no., vol. no., location, name, or topic. Search results are listed chronologically. Current coverage: v. 3, 5 (Colonial); v. 9 (Domestic relations); v. 10-14, 15A (Ecclesiastical); v. 23-24 (French Neutrals); v. 29 (Indian conferences); v. 30-33 (Indian); v. 112 (Towns); v. 303 (Petitions)
