A very complete collection of vital statistics containing all the data from the first four volumes of town books, a lengthy section of family and vital records extracted from the town's early town records, membership data and vital statistics from the records of the First Congregational Church, and data on the town's soldiers down through the Civil War. Some of the data are for the seventeenth century, but the bulk of the information concerns the period from 1700 to 1850. The records were transcribed verbatim in their original order and they contain a wealth of entire family groupings. This town was set off from Saybrook in 1667 and its records cover Old Lyme, much of East Lyme, and about half of Salem. A full-name index and an index of church records add to the value of this work.