Three cheers for the puritans in MA - they liked to keep records, and passed that on to their descendants.

Looking for records, it’s clear that all states aren’t equal. NY didn’t require b/d registrations until 1881 - boo. My g-g-g grandfather of whom I wrote earlier was supposedly born in that state, but that was in the early 19th century and official records probably don’t exist. The old Bible records page does give a date and county in NY, but there is no way to verify that, probably. Which is a shame, as his ancestry that was researched over the years is at odds with what I can find on the internet. If it weren’t for old Bible records there probably wouldn’t be much genealogical history before the Civil War.