From an article by Heather Morrison and published in the MassLive web site:

"Salem’s typically filled with ghost tours, visitors walking through cemeteries and other haunted happenings. This year, however, the city is discouraging visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"But that doesn’t mean people can’t still discover the stories behind the well-known city.

"The city of Salem has been working with Laserfiche, a software company, for about three years to preserve some of its oldest documents, creating an online database for the public to search."

Later in the same article:

"Another reason many come to Salem is to gather information about someone’s family history or genealogy.

“They can go and look at the original land grants information. They can track to when that became a parcel. They can track when that became a house. They can track the changes in the ownership of that house, various permits that were issued for that house or property, various other actions that happened over time,” Killen said. “And they can do that all safely at home. They don’t need to come to Salem. They don’t need to come into an office. They don’t need to interact with one or more potentially several staff members.”

You can find the full article at: https://bit.ly/2HRhfTN.