Long dismissed as conventional and antiquarian, church records are actually unparalleled sources for historians offering information on a wide range of topics, such as the founding and evolution of churches, popular involvement in religious institutions and practices, modes of church governance, deviance, and resistance, and the interactions of churches--not to mention revealing information on significant moments in the lives of laity and ministers alike. This volume includes two of the finest sets of church records from the colonial era of Massachusetts history thus far unpublished. The...