The Dartmouth Historical and Arts Society announced this week that it will be publishing early Dartmouth Quaker Meeting records in conjunction with the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

According to a DHAS press release, the records will likely be published in two volumes, Men’s Meeting Minutes from 1699-1785 and Women’s Meetings from 1699-1782.

For more than a year, DHAS members and community volunteers have been transcribing the original record books for the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting — around 6,000 pages — and compiling them in a searchable database.

The project is supported by the local Friends community and funded with more than $30,000 in donations.

Digitized copies of some of  the pages are already available for viewing on the DHAS website at dartmouthHAS.org. 

The records include information on the life, values, culture and movement of the community of Friends throughout New England over the past 250 years. 

DHAS director Robert Barboza said that the society has already “proven its value to historians, researchers, and genealogists” by making “a tremendous amount” of local historical documents available online. 

“This collaboration with the prestigious Colonial Society of Massachusetts will only enhance that reputation, and encourage more study of our local history,” he added.

The Colonial Society will publish the records in cooperation with DHAS and will distribute the volumes through the University of Virginia Press.

Founded in 1892, the Colonial Society has published 92 volumes of primary records from Massachusetts’ colonial history.