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WELCOME to The Morse Society's new website!

 

This site was launched on April 19, 2012 to completely replace our old online presence. It is our goal to provide a dynamic website that is of use to those researching their Morse/Moss family tree lines. We will continue to populate the site with research aids, genealogy tips, newsletters, etc. over the next few months. Please check back often to see what we've added!

 

PLEASE NOTE that log-in information from our old website will not work on this site.

 

The Morse Society Forum is now located behind the member log-in. Here's why:

 

On our old website, the forum was open to the public. A high number of individuals signed up for a forum account, posted a query, and disappeared forever. Many wouldn't even respond to a direct contact from our Research Team, which was extremely frustrating for our 100% volunteer staff. While this certainly doesn't apply to ALL members of our former forum, it was a significant enough problem that we had to make a change. 

 

We invite non-members to join The Morse Society and become an active part of our ongoing discussions. Our forum is a great place to post a query about your ancestor, ask for suggestions on how to break through a research brick wall, or share your genealogy finds with other Morses and Mosses! For more information about our member benefits, just click on Join at the left side of this page.

 

The Morse Society's 2012 Biennial Conference will be held in Norwood, MA on Aug 17 - 18. This will be a great opportunity to learn about our big family, meet other descendants and learn something new about genealogy!

 

• A service project in which we’ll remove years of grime and lichens from headstones at Vine Lake Cemetery. 
• A tour of the oldest timber frame home in America, which was built by Jonathan Fairbanks. Several of our members descend from unions of the Samuel Morse and Jonathan Fairbanks lines.
• Tours of Vine Lake Cemetery, the Morse Monument, the Dedham Historical Museum, and the Morse Cellar Hole.  
• An Open House and Reception with the Society’s Research Team and other members of your line! 
• A full day of seminars on a broad range of topics, including:  Samuel Morse’s Colonial Dedham, Identifying and Dating Family Photographs, Deeds and Probate Documents, Finding Your Ancestors in New England Poverty Records, and more!

 

The 1940 US Census Community Project is seeking volunteers to index the information so it can be searched online for free.

 

The 1940 US Federal Census is the largest, most comprehensive, and most recent record set available that records the names of those living in the United States at that time. 1940 Community Project volunteers will create a free online searchable index of the 135 million people in this census-a rich historical and genealogical data set for all to share.

 

Indexing is actually quite easy, so we encourage our members and friends to help index the areas in which they live, creating an accurate and completely searchable census. History is waiting...join the project today!

 

More information is available here: https://the1940census.com/

 

Most Americans know the basic facts of the American Revolutionary War: 1775, Lexington, Yorktown, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, and the rest of the famous people and events. What is less widely understood is the topic of AMerican Tories, those who chose to side with Great Britain and the King. We konw that many were poorly treated by their neighbors and many fled to Canada. But what were the personal consequences to people who had the courage to voice their highly unpopular opinions in public? We can look to our own Morse Society archives to find an example of what happened to one particular individual.

 

Ebenezer Morse was born in 1718, the son of Hon. Joshua and Mary Kingsbury Morse of Medfield, MA. A descendent of Samuel Morse (one of the original settlers of Medfield), he was said to have a keen intellect, to have been an excellent classical scholar, and to have possessed an outspoken forthright manner. He graduated from Harvard in 1737, spent a year learning law in the office of Hon. John Chandler of Worcester, taught himself the practice of medicine, and in 1743 was ordained the first minister of the North Parish Congregational Church in Shrewsbury, MA.

During the first 27 years of his ministry, relations with his congregation were amicable. However, (read more)