New England's passion for record-keeping

The American Antiquarian Society building, in Worcester, where many old New England documents can be found.

“The starting point for the new history, both in Europe and America, has been the record of births, marriages, and deaths, which most literate societies preserve in one form or another. In colonial America, surviving records of this kind - as of every other kind - are most abundant for New England.’’

—- The late historian Edmund Morgan