Hi again, IF I found the correct record, my grandmother was taken to the "Boston Female Asylum" in the late spring or summer of 1899. That "orphanage for girls" is mentioned on many web sites, including this one: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=WYMXAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Boston+Female+Asylum%22&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=2kzm2k_gi3&sig=9x36CrIstOjqItEVV6Xm4LCVhkw&ei=BpyaSZfeKKGjtgfTxfzkAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA11,M1 This web site mentions many of the large universities and colleges in Boston which have large Libraries, and are in the process of taking in "old records." http://www.blc.org/task_forces/FY04/Digitization_IV/di_appendix_b.html Betty (near Lowell, MA) FYI: Here is another Google / Book, "Adoption in America." http://books.google.com/books?id=gVnx_ymDu6wC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=%22Boston+Female+Asylum%22&source=web&ots=O8Kg9509wb&sig=myEd2uOIjvnX-TcZpQssFuqoajw&hl=en&ei=BpyaSZfeKKGjtgfTxfzkAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result FYI: The "families stories" told to my grandmother when she was in the DEXTER home in Melrose from Age ~2 to 10, were mostly lies. I don't believe she was a foundling and then became a Ward of the State at 3 months. I believe the DEXTER's married daughter in CT had a pregnancy in the "summer of 1888" without the benefit of her husband. I also believe that Mr. DEXTER went to the courthouse and made this baby's birth records "disappear." Mrs. DEXTER died in the spring of 1899, and the little girl was taken to that orphanage. Mr. DEXTER had sold their house and he moved to a boarding house in Boston. In 1904 he was taken to the Tewksbury State Hospital and he died there a year later. His only visitors were his sister from CT, a gentleman-friend from Boston, and "Mamie," who I believe was my grandmother as a teen. His daughter in CT - did not visit. He was buried on the grounds of the hospital. In 1899, his wife's remains were sent back to CT.