The Berkshire Athenaeum,
Pittsfield's Public Library:
Local History, Genealogy & Berkshire Authors
Research Materials
Local History:
Pittsfield, The Berkshires and Beyond

Genealogy:
New Englanders and Where We Came From

Berkshire Authors Collection

Herman Melville Memorial Room

Hours and Address

Other Athenaeum Resources
It would be impossible to offer a comprehensive list of our collection. You just have to come in to believe it! Formats include published books, manuscripts, typescripts, microfilm, microfiche and CD-ROM. Some areas we cover are:
  • Massachusetts Vital Records from the earliest to 1905
  • Vermont Vital Records to 1908
  • Barbour Collection of early Connecticut Vitals
  • The Hale Collection of Connecticut Records
  • Arnold's early Rhode Island Vitals
  • Cooke, Corbin, Shepard, Browne and Berkshire Collections
  • French-Canadian Parish Records and PRDH
  • Original Pittsfield town and church records
  • Western Massachusetts Map collection (1738-1993)
  • International Genealogical Index (IGI)
  • American Genealogical & Biographical Index
  • About 130 linear feet of published genealogies
  • Contributed genealogy files
  • Pittsfield tax records (1761-1993)
  • Central Berkshire naturalizations, earliest to about 192?
  • Berkshire Court of Common Please (1760-1860)
  • Berkshire Probate Court records
  • Revolutionary War records
  • Berkshire newspapers from 1788 to the present
  • City of Pittsfield Vital Records to 1938
  • Federal census for Massachusetts through 1920 and Census Indexes for many other states
  • DAR and some SAR materials
  • Mayflower Descendants & related materials
  • Gazetteers and Biographical Dictionaries
  • Periodical Source Index (PERSI) and dozens of periodicals
.... and that's just scratching the surface

To know about specific titles, check the library's online catalog! Enter "PAC," use emulation #5 and select library #52 when given the choices. Right now you need telnet to do it, but in the fall (1999) we will switch to software that will be web accessible. We are in the middle of a major cataloguing project to add all our holdings, so check back often.