The Boston area Polish immigrants were different from those in Chicago or Milwaukee. Chicago attracted people mostly from Prussian Poland as did Milwaukee. The Boston Poles were mostly from the eastern regions of Poland (Russian Poland) including what are now parts of Lithuania (if you see a Wino as part of a place name, it was probably a typo for Wilno), Belarus, and Ukraine. It was common to see some of the brides/grooms listed in the marriage records were from the orthodox rite rather than Roman Catholic rite as noted by many dispensations for mixed marriages. Some parishes had a notable number of Galicians (Austrian Poland) but it was very rare to see immigrants from Prussian Poland. Happily, a few churches used a marriage form that recorded not just where a person was from (their current residence) but also asked where they were baptized-- addressing the confusion of an ambiguous "Where are you from?" See Ex Loco for a discussion of that issue.

The imaging of Roman Catholic church records by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) was stopped several years ago because of doctrinal difference issues. Most dioceses do not have the money or expertise to conduct the imaging on their own. The Archdiocese of Boston partnered with American Ancestors to image and make records available to researchers. A membership or guest account is necessary to view the images. In that sense it's no different than logging into Family Search.

Most of the Polish church marriage records for the Archdioces of Boston were from the early 20th century and used place names consistent with that time. Lack of detailed maps or gazetteers from that time make it difficult to find locales in order to see if records are available from those locales. Border changes and yes, language changes affect one's ability to find locales on a modern map. I did the best I could to read the locale names and find them on a modern map. I corrected some names but where I was unsure, I left them 'as is'. Generally, names were in Polish. Keep in mind that most of these folks were from Russian Poland so some maps might show names in the Cyrillic alphabet. The Wilno gubernia was probably the most cited region in these records. Wilno is now Vilnius and that region is in Lithuania. As you may have guessed, the names are now in Lithuanian and simple transliteration doesn't always work. The website page Eastern Borderlands Places deals with Poland between World War I and World War II. Even though many administrative designations are not the same as they had been in the early 1900s or as now, you can search for localities and see them on a map.

Here are a few locales I encountered in the records:

Many people came from Dłutowo, pow. Mława, gub Płock. Its modern designation is Dłutowo, gmina Lidzbark, pow. Działdowo. During my initial search on Google maps I did not turn up a reasonable location for Dłutowo. Searching in the Mława area, I accidentally found a Nowe Dłutowo and a Stare Dłutowo that fit the bill. The parish is known as Dłutowo. Satellite images show the church building is in Nowe Dłutowo. So sometimes you might see Nowe Dłutowo instead of just Dłutowo in this index.

Kozakiszki is in the Wilno gubernia. The Polish gazetteer of 1933 shows a Kozakiszki in Swięciany county but most church records said it was in Troki county. Słownik Geograficzny had an entry for Kozakiszki in Troki and one in Swięciany. I don't know why the 1933 gazetteer did not list the Kozakiszki in Troki.

Mława was not only a city but also a county name. You might also see Muława in locale names which is really Mława. This is a case of making a two syllable word into a three syllable word, much like instead of saying 'stringbean' we said it like 'stirring bean' by adding another vowel between consonants.

Troki was not only a city but also a county name. I'm not sure yet if it refers to Nowe Troki or Stare Troki. In some records, you may see Trocki, an adjectival form of Troki.

Sometimes marriage records do not explicity say someone is a widow or widower. I suppose it's true of the entire marriage database but more troublesome for the Boston area records. I found that many times, the father of the bride had a different surname than the bride. While this strongly suggests she is a widow, it could be that the listed father is her stepfather. I was rather inconsistent in how the main entry was indexed. In some instances I indexed based the surname of the bride and referenced the father's surname in the Notes field (bride's father given as ???). In other instances, I used the surname of the father and referenced the surname of the bride in the Notes field (bride aka ???).

Polish Parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston

A comprehensive list of Polish churches in all of Massachusetts can be found here.
What follows is a list of Polish Roman Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Boston arranged alphabetically by locale. There may be commentary about the condition of the volumes that were indexed. If a volume is not listed, assume that it is complete, contains no noteworthy insertions/attachments and that the handwriting is mostly readable.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, Boston, MA:
Click the link for some history of the church. Our Lady of Czestochowa parish marriage records were strange. Generally in most parishes, the records are in approximate chronological order where records are added as the marriages took place. I said 'approximate' because the priest may have started an entry at the time the upcoming wedding was first announced. The record would then be completed after the ceremony actually took place. That could cause records to be slightly out of order. In this church, there seemed to be blocks of records out of order which made even the year of the record questionable. This also led to duplicate entries of some records. I wondered if the records were kept on loose pages that were bound and later numbered. This too could lead some records to be out of order.

Baptism volume 1902-1916 (volume 2)
Image 263 explains that baptisms from 1908-1913 are in another book (volume 2). So this volume only has 1902-1908 and 1913-1916 baptisms.

Baptism volume 1915-1917 (volume 4)
Sections of bad handwriting were encountered.
Miscellaneous documents were kept at page 255:
image 255a: Immigration certificate for John Kendzievski (likely Kendzierski). Details of his family provided. Birth dates of his child added to this index though it's not clear if they were baptized in this church.
image 255b: no useful information-- text about a confirmation
and a letter of inquiry about age of Celia Blasky married 7/15/1915
image 255c: no useful information
image 255d: affidavit of Wladyslaw Kozlakowski and his marriage
image 255e and 255f: request for birth date from marriage record of Kathryn Trojniak, now Kathryn Yarosz
image 255g: marriage certificate of Felix Gierasunczyk and Sophie Szejman (Szyman?)

Marriages (volume 4)
Mixed religion dispensation certificate from 1926 for Henry Boyack and Helen Jozukiewicz on image 45a

Our Lady of Ostrobrama, Boston, MA:
Baptisms volume 1916-1920
This volume also contains a section with marriages. The baptismal section has 12 baptisms per page and is otherwise unremarkable.

Baptisms volume 1920
This volume resumes with baptisms from 1920. There are 10 baptisms per page. Imaging stopped after 1920. Pages 13-101 would otherwise have the post-1920 baptisms which we don't have access to.

Marriages volume 1916-1920
This volume also contains a section with baptisms which are described above. Imaging stopped after 1920. There are 12 marriages per page. There are two important features of this section. First, the birth place of the brides and grooms are given. Secondly, their birth years (or approximations) are given. Most brides and grooms were from Russian-Poland-- and particularly from the Wilno gubernia.

Our Lady of Ostrobrama, Brockton, MA:
This church is now closed.
Baptisms volume 1914-1919 (volume 1)
Baptisms recorded in free style with typically three records per page but that number varied.

Baptisms volume 1914-1920 (volume 2)
Baptisms were recorded on preprinted pages with typically twelve records per page. Records from the previous volume were copied in this volume as were new baptisms beyond those in the old volume. Imaging stopped after 1920.

Because there were two baptismal volumes covering much of the same date range, the index may provide two records for the same person.

Indexer Notes: To make it easier for me, my digital copy of the volume 1 index was copied and pasted into the new volume 2 structure. Fortunately, the order of the records in each volume was very much the same. I only needed to repaginate the new volume. I did not check dates or given names to see that they were the same in both volumes-- that said, there could be discrepancies. I only checked surnames of the father and mother to catch spelling discrepancies in those columns.

St. Hedwig, Cambridge, MA:
This church is now closed.

St. Stanislaus B&M, Chelsea, MA:
This church is now closed.
One of the first parish volumes contained various church records but its sections are treated as separate volumes.
Marriages (volume 3)
Page 14 blank
Page 1 has two baptismal certificates w/ marriage records on their backs

St. Michael the Archangel, Haverhill, MA:
This church is now closed.

St. Adalbert, Hyde Park, MA:
This church is now closed.
Baptisms (volume 1)
Small and sometimes unreadable writing used in this volume.

Marriages (volume 1)
Bad handwriting throughout.

Sacred Heart, Ipswich, MA:
This church is now closed.
Church also known as Sacred Heart of Jesus. There is only one baptismal volume online and goes through 1917 instead of the usual 1920.

Marriage (volume 1)
Miscellaneous divorce letter dated 1954 at image 59a

Holy Trinity, Lawrence, MA:
This church is now closed.
Marriage (volume 1)
Page 253 is a blank page. It doesn't even have preprinted form information on it.

Holy Trinity, Lowell, MA:
Baptisms (volume 3)
Pages 339-348 were missing but likely due to page misnumbering because those numbers are not used in the volume index.

Marriages (volume 1)
Copy of birth certificate for Ignatius Kosik on 2/17/1905 at image 20
Banns for John Wojtkiewicz and Maureen Crant? in October 1956 at image 231

St. Michael, Lynn, MA:
Church also known as St. Michael the Archangel. This church is now closed.
It is not clear why a marriage volume from sometime in 1914-1920 is not listed on American Ancestors site.
Baptisms (volume 1)
Pages 12 and 43-301 are blank
Pages 25-42 are marriages (also bottom of page 24)

Baptisms (volume 3)
Page 21 not imaged but exists! Page 20 shows some names on page 21 near the binding. Page 22, the backside of page 21 is imaged. Names from page 21 that were readable on image 20 were indexed.
Pages 119-120 and 133-134 are missing and the volume index has no names for those pages.

Marriages (volume 1)
These marriages are in a volume also containing baptisms.

Marriages (volume 2)
This volume only goes through 1914 and not through the expected 1920. Most locales are given as Lynn, MA and 'same place' so they were not repeated in the locale columns.
Pages 81-253 are blank.
Page 51 not imaged though it exists! Page 50 shows some names on page 51 near the binding. Page 52, the backside of page 51 is imaged. Surnames from page 51 that were readable on image 50 were indexed.

St. Casimir, Maynard, MA:
This church is now closed.
Baptisms (volume 1)
Baptisms imaged from page 1-34 (no records imaged beyond 1920)

Marriages (volume 1)
Pages 52-61 have post-1920 records and were not imaged.

St. Peter, Norwood, MA:
This church is now closed. As a relatively 'new' parish, there were very few records to index through 1920 when imaging stopped.

St. John the Baptist, Salem, MA:
Baptisms (volume 1)
Image 5A has marriage cert. of John Fairkoski (Kwiatkowsk) born 2/14/1905 in Salem son of John and Frances nee Jilski to Edna Rushton of Dennis and Addie nee Jesmer married 9/29/1934
Pages 81-88 are missing from imaging. Only the names of the children affected were found in the volume index-- sort of. I found 5 children on page 81 (when there should only be 4) but only 3 on page 85 and page 86 (where there should be 4). So of the 32 possible children, only 31 names could be reconstructed. These records would have been from late 1905 through early 1906. Though the pages present seemed to be in good shape the binding of the volume was bad. Some pages were held in the volume with duct tape! This volume left out baptisms for most of 1908 and 1912. It skipped all baptisms for 1909, 1910 and 1911.

Baptisms (volume 2)
This volume continues in 1908 where it left off in volume 1. It then includes 1909, 1910 and 1911. Then it picks up any missing 1912 and 1913 records from volume 1.

Baptisms (volume 3)
Annulment certificate for Sztandarski at image 100a
Miscellaneous birth/marriage notes (after 1920) on image 21a

Marriages (volume 1)
Pages 89-253 are blank.

Marriages (volume 2)
Request for marriage record of Jacob Romsavitch and Mary Stanavitch in 1919
Baptismal certificate for Thaddeus Surman inserted at page 41 of this volume (image 41a)
Pages 141-142 missing from the volume.