The following links may be helpful in your research
Free genealogy sites
FamilySearch is free to use, although registration is required. There are many Massachusetts town vital records available.
HeritageQuest is free for Massachusetts Library Card holders. After clicking the link, scroll down to “Proquest HeritageQuest.”
Town of Yarmouth vital records, property records, militia and other historic items.
Barnstable County Registry of Deeds
Please note the Registry of Deeds burned in 1827 and while some records were re-recorded from town copies dating 1790-1827, many early land records were lost.
Free public access search with images here:
https://www.barnstabledeeds.org/free-public-access/
Annual Reports
A Town of Yarmouth Annual Report from 1860, available in the archives of the State Library of Massachusetts.
Town of Yarmouth Annual Reports from 1869 - present. These are a good source of vital records as birth, marriages and deaths were recorded annually for many years.
Newspapers and Obituaries
The Yarmouth Register and Barnstable Patriot have been digitized and are free to search.
The Falmouth Enterprise and the Town of Falmouth Annual Reports may be searched for free courtesy of the Falmouth Public Library.
The Chatham Monitor Newspaper has been digitized and may be searched at no charge thanks to the Eldredge Public Library.
The Brooks Free Library has digitized several Harwich newspapers which are available on their website.
The Nantucket Atheneum offers a digital collection of newspapers from the island, searchable for free.
Issues of the Provincetown Advocate may be searched courtesy of the Provincetown Public Library.
The Falmouth Public Library has the Cape Cod Times on microfilm and will look up obituaries from 1935-2000 for free. Contact their reference librarian.
The Boston Public Library offers a free ecard to all Massachusetts residents, allowing online access to their Historical Newspapers collection.
CLAMS Library cardholders may search the Cape Cod Times online database (1998-present) through a link on their home library website.
Cemeteries
*Please note: all 17th century gravestones on Cape Cod have been documented and photographed - there are less than 20. If you ancestor died during that time it is quite likely the grave is unmarked and location unknown.
FindaGrave has extensive, though incomplete listings of most Cape Cod cemeteries along with some photographs of headstones. It is free to access.
CapeCodGravestones has many listings of old gravestones. There is no search box but suggested search options are in the notes on their home page.
Gravestone Records in the Ancient Cemetery and the Woodside Cemetery Located now on Internet Archive, this book is a compilation of all gravestone inscriptions prior to 1851 found when a survey of the cemetery was done just after 1900 and was published in 1906. It can be helpful to find stones no longer readable or gone.
Friends of Ancient Cemetery is a volunteer organization dedicated to preserving and updating cemetery records as well as documenting and cleaning the gravestones. Their research has resulted in this extensive spreadsheet of burial information which is constantly being added to and updated.
Yarmouth Town Cemetery Search on CemeteryFind. Be sure to select Massachusetts, then Yarmouth, to search the town (not private) cemeteries. Not all Yarmouth cemeteries are included, only those owned by the town.
Barnstable Cemetery Search with maps to grave location. Older graves may not link to a map location.
The town of Plymouth Cemetery Search can be accessed HERE.
HSOY has Ancient Cemetery and Yarmouth Port Woodside Cemetery records onsite. Contact us for assistance.
Maps
A 1795 map of Yarmouth.
An 1830 map of Yarmouth.
An 1847 map of Yarmouth Port
1858 maps of Barnstable, Nantucket and Dukes Counties.
1910 Atlas of Barnstable County from the State Library of Massachusetts (large file)
A 1931 map of Yarmouth.
1936 Yarmouth topography maps. Click on the map, then click on the image to scroll in for more detail.
Our archives office has a large collection of local maps. Contact us for help.
Local Library Collections
The Yarmouth Port Library has a collection of annual Yarmouth Town Reports which often contain a list of births, marriages and deaths for that year (also digitized by the town and online, see above), and they have a nearly complete collection of Massachusetts Vital Records of individual towns to 1850. They have a subscription to Ancestry.com that can be accessed in the library.
South Yarmouth Library offers in-library access to Ancestry.com and at home access to Fold3 for their card holders.
Sturgis Library in Barnstable Village has a large collection of Cape Cod history books, vital records and much more. Their Archives and Lothrop Room are open to the public for research, though you may wish to call first to check available hours or to reserve the microfilm reader. Sturgis reference librarians will also try to assist by email.
If you are new to the area or do not have one, you may apply for a CLAMS Library ecard online but may need to upgrade to a full card at the library to access online databases. Cards are restricted to Massachusetts residents. Call the library nearest you for more information.
Free digitized books online from Internet Archive, Library of Congress and more.
Barnstable and Yarmouth, sea captains and ship owners
by Francis William Sprague
Stories of Yarmouth Shipmasters
A History of Old Yarmouth
by Charles Francis Swift
History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts
by Simeon Deyo