Between 1899 and 1937, the Society of Mayflower Descendants inaugurated a series of transcriptions of the birth, marriage, and death records in its quarterly, The Mayflower Descendant. In 1976, Col. and Mrs. Leonard H. Smith Jr., with the consent of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, published one-volume limited edition reprints of these series, including this one pertaining to Barnstable and Sandwich. Researchers will discover that this work refers to the birth, marriage or death of thousands of early residents of these two towns. The full-name index added by the Smiths makes it easy to locate every person mentioned in the text.