Church records are valuable for two reasons. They include vital records like births, marriages, and deaths, and they also tell stories about people’s membership in a community. In particular, affiliation with a Quaker meeting had consequences for one’s behavior and the behavior of one’s family. The code of discipline required strict adherence to the rules of conduct, especially for marriage. The meeting expected its members to attend meetings and to subscribe to collections.  In return it provided a social network and a safety net for the needy. To know that someone was a Friend tells a lot about them. ¹

Every Friend was a member of a meeting for worship and was expected to attend the closest meeting to his or her home. ² Two more meetings for worship formed a monthly meeting. Monthly meetings were organized into quarterly meetings, and the yearly meeting presided over all of them. The monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings all kept records. The records of most interest to genealogists and historians are the monthly meetings, with births, marriages, deaths, discipline, arrivals and departures of members.

Friends had a tradition of birthright membership. A child born to Quaker parents was presumably raised as a Friend and had automatic membership in the Society. ³  It was therefore important for meetings to record marriages and births of children. They were less concerned with deaths and burials, but often noted those as part of the larger record-keeping process. In addition they kept minutes of the meeting business, showing the members appointed to the many committees for visiting wayward friends, attending marriages, settling disputes or handling subscriptions. Although they did not keep membership lists at this early period, most members were probably included in some type of record. However absence from the records does not rule out membership if someone was not active in the meeting and did not appear in the record of life events. ⁴

When the shiploads of Quaker emigrants flooded into the province in 1682 and 1683 most were strangers to each other. In order to accept each other into their communities, they used a system of certificates, letters from their home meeting in England testifying to their good behavior, “good conversation” as it was often called. It would certify that they were in good standing for behavior, that they had not left outstanding debts, and in the case of unmarried persons that they were free of engagements or promises to others. These certificates were often, though not always, recorded by the meeting they joined in Pennsylvania. Most Quakers probably came with such a certificate of clearance. In a few cases the minutes of the meeting specifically say that someone arrived without one and a request had to be sent back to England or the information gathered in other ways. ⁵

The early records are incomplete. Some people did not bring a record of their children’s births to the meeting clerk. Some early marriages were not recorded, for example those at Germantown meeting. The very earliest minutes have not survived for many meetings. For example the first men’s minutes from Falls Monthly Meeting begin in 3^rd month 1683, almost a year after the first large wave of settlement. The early records may have been written in loose sheets, and some of those lost. Typically the meeting would gather these and keep them more systematically in later years. For example in 1717 Abington hired George Boone to transcribe the early records into a book.

Friends considered women to be spiritual equals to men, but did not treat them equally in the sphere of meeting management. The women had their own monthly meeting, with special responsibility for approving the request of young people to marry. They kept their own minutes, and went to the men’s meeting to present candidates for marriage. However they did not have the power of the men’s monthly meeting over raising subscriptions for the poor, building new meeting houses, or sending representatives to the quarterly meeting. ⁶

For identifying the people of Holme’s map the record of eight monthly meetings are the most relevant: Philadelphia, Abington, Falls, Middletown, Chester, Concord, Radnor, and Darby (plus a few from Newark or Kennett Meeting, and a few from Burlington). These are the earliest meetings within the bounds of the map. This is where we will look for vital records and stories.