Accessing the Yearly Meeting Archives

Using the Yearly Meeting Archives

The NEYM Archives are located in the Department of Special Collections of the UMass Amherst Libraries. The collection has been inventoried and is being cataloged. A few items have also been digitized and can be viewed online.

For those interested in consulting the Archives you can view the collection descriptions currently available on the website (link is external).

You can submit questions to the archivists through the website. You can also go to the W. E. B. Du Bois Library on the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts. SCUA is located on the 25th floor. Hours of operation are generally Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. during the academic calendar and summer from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Directions and hours of operation are available here (link is external).

For a thorough explanation of what kinds of records Friends keep and a glossary of Quaker terms, consult:

• Elizabeth Cazden, “Some Tips on Using Quaker Records,” Rhode Island Roots No. 2, June 2011, pp. 103-106.
• Baltimore Yearly Meeting, Committee on Records, Handbook on Records: The Creation, Maintenance, and Preservation in the Meeting, Sandy Spring, MD: Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 1996. Click here (link is external) to read online.
• Ellen and David Berry, Our Quaker Ancestors: Finding Them in Quaker Records, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1987. A comprehensive guide to records of Friends in New England lists records held at the Rhode Island Historical Society (that are now at SCUA) and at other repositories.