I think this is OK now. Here is addition to mersenne_twister.hpp: friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> inline void save (Archive &ar, const unsigned int) const { for (int j = 0; j < state_size; ++j) { UIntType x = compute (j); ar << boost::serialization::make_nvp("item", const_cast<const UIntType&>(x)); } } template<class Archive> inline void load (Archive &ar, const unsigned int) { for (int j = 0; j < state_size; ++j) { ar >> boost::serialization::make_nvp ("item", x[j]); } i = state_size; } template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar, const unsigned int file_version) { boost::serialization::split_member(ar, *this, file_version); } Also: #include <boost/serialization/split_member.hpp> #include <boost/serialization/nvp.hpp> Here is a simple test that passes: #include <boost/archive/text_oarchive.hpp> #include <boost/archive/text_iarchive.hpp> #include <boost/random.hpp> typedef boost::mt19937 rng_t; int main() { rng_t rng1; std::ostringstream os; boost::archive::text_oarchive oa(os); oa << const_cast<const rng_t&>(rng1); std::string st (os.str()); std::istringstream is (st); boost::archive::text_iarchive ia (is); rng_t rng2; ia >> rng2; // std::cout << rng2; assert (rng1 == rng2); }