Early probate records in Pennsylvania

When a man died in early Pennsylvania, most of the time his death set off a chain of legal events. Following procedures that were familiar from England, the survivors, whether Quaker or not, knew what they had to do. Within a few days of the death, an inventory was taken of his possessions: cash on hand, clothing, household goods and furniture, tools or farm equipment, livestock, grain growing in his fields. The men who took the inventory appraised the value of each item, and totaled up the worth of estate (not including the land).

In his will, if he left one, he named executors who were responsible for paying his debts and burial expenses, collecting debts owed to him, selling property if needed to cover the debts, making a distribution to the heirs, and making an account of the estate, starting with the assessed value of the inventory. They were supposed to file the account within a year after the death. In the case of a larger, more complex estate, it might take longer, and occasionally more than one account was necessarily filed.

If he did not leave a will, the administrators had the same responsibility as the executors. A surviving wife, if there was one, was usually the administrator, often assisted by a relative or friend. Sometimes in the will a Friend would specify that the monthly meeting should assist her.

Women did not usually make wills in the early years, and their estates did not go through this probate process. Her family would take care of her possessions and any debts, without any legal notice taken. There are some early exceptions. When the widow Agnes Crosdale died in 9th month of 1686, her sons William and John, along with Nicholas Waln and Robert Heaton, served as joint administrators, signing a bond to Phineas Pemberton the Deputy Register, and an inventory was taken of her estate.  1

The death of a husband could be devastating to a woman. By law she was entitled to one-third of the estate, both land and personal goods (one-half if there were no children). This was called the “widow’s third”. If he left a will that gave her less than a third, she could reject it and claim her portion. However, if he left debts, the creditors had a claim to the estate that took priority over her claim. If the estate had to be sold to satisfy the debts, she might be left with nothing. 2

In practice many poor people did not leave a will. When there is one, it is valuable for the genealogist, since it usually tells the names of spouses and children and the residence when the will was written. It is equally valuable to the historian, as it gives proof that someone emigrated, tells whether the wife was entrusted with the estate, and occasionally tells stories. For example Robert Jeffs in his will proved 2nd month 1688 asked William Penn to take note of unfair treatment by Thomas Fairman over a leased farm. John Tathum cut his disobedient daughter Dorothy out of his estate because he disapproved of her clandestine marriage.

The other estate papers are valuable too, especially the inventories. These give a window into the homes and life of the people, listing how many beds they had, how many pots, how many barrels of food. They allow a historian to look at the wealth of the community: how evenly it was spread around, how it changed over generations, what form it took. Because the inventories are so detailed, they are a source of data that can be mined to answer many questions. How valuable were people’s clothes? How much cash did they keep on hand? How many cows did it take to feed a family? 3

It is easy to access short abstracts of the early wills. For Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks County they are available on the USGenWeb Archive. Note that Chester County did not register its own wills until 1714; until then they were handled by Philadelphia County. Bucks County registered some early ones until about 1693, then for twenty years they were handled in Philadelphia, then in 1713 they were again registered in Bucks County.

The Bucks County courthouse in Doylestown has the original estate packets, consisting of the administrative bond or will, inventory, and accounting of the estate. Many estates are missing one or more of these pieces, but the surviving papers are there. They will eventually be digitized, but for now if you want to see the full will or the other papers, this is the only source. Ancestry has an index: the Index of Bucks County wills and administrations to 1850.

The office of wills in City Hall in Philadelphia holds the original documents administered in Philadelphia County. There are three ways to see them, depending on how much detail you want to see. The wills were copied into will books, which are in the office. They were microfilmed and you can read them there. You can request the full estate packets, usually on a day’s notice, which are the only source for the inventory and account. 4

For Philadelphia County, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania has some valuable holdings. The photostats of the early wills and inventories are in a set of 25 volumes, to about 1725. (Call numbers Ph 1A:1, Ph 1A:2, etc.) They have some overlapping coverage in other volumes (Ph 3A, Ph 4A …) and an index at Ph 13A.

For Chester County estate documents, you will need to go to the Chester County Archive in West Chester. There is an online index, and a guide to the documents, available on their website. Remember that they do not have any estate documents before 1714.

  1. Original estate papers at Bucks County Courthouse, number 114.
  2. Lisa Wilson, Life after Death, Widows in Pennsylvania 1750-1850.
  3. There was only one thing that was not included in the inventory—the personal apparel of the wife.
  4. You will need to provide the estate number, which is the same as the one on the USGenWeb Archive list.

Finding the early Quaker vital records at the Pennsylvania Historical Society

If you are able to visit the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia, you will find a wealth of early Quaker records. The shelves of their Pennsylvania room hold rows of church records, bound years ago in green and brown. These are not the fragile original records, but copies or in some cases photostats of the originals.

HSP Quaker records

The online catalog of the Society, called Discover, allows you to search for particular records. For example, you could enter Philadelphia monthly meeting in the search box, then click on the Find button.  To narrow down the results, you could filter for Church records and registers. The results do not always pin down the contents precisely. Here are some of the more useful records for the earliest Quaker meetings, with their call numbers.

Note that the records are currently being digitized and will eventually appear on the FamilySearch website.

In the table below, older handwriting refers to the 1700s, while later handwriting refers to the late 1800s when many records were copied by William J. Buck, Gilbert Cope, and others. The later handwriting is easier to read, while the earlier handwriting gives you a feel for the original work.

MeetingBirthsDeathsMarriages
FallsAn old handwritten list in alphabetical order. Bu 7F:3.
A later copy. Bu 7F:2 and Bu 3F.
An old handwritten list, Bu 7F:3.
An old handwritten list, Bu 7F:3.
A later copy in alphabetical order, Bu 3F.
MiddletownA later copy in alphabetical order, Bu 3F.A later copy in alphabetical order, Bu 3F.An older handwritten list, along with Falls Meeting, Bu 1F:3.
A later copy in alphabetical order, Bu 3F.
PhiladelphiaA handwritten copy in alphabetical order, Ph 1F:4.
An 1877 copy, roughly chronological, Ph 1F:1
A handwritten copy in alphabetical order, Ph 1F:4.
An 1877 copy, roughly chronological, Ph 1F:1
Abstracts of marriage certificates, alphabetical order, Ph 15F.
Abstracts in chronological order, Ph 1F:3 (and Ph 1B:2).
Both of these sources have some witnesses listed, but not all. Get those on Ancestry.
AbingtonTyped copy, roughly chronological, Mo 1F:1.
Births of Byberry Meeting (part of Abington MM), Mo 1F:10.
Typed copy, roughly chronological, Mo 1F:1.
Byberry records, later copy, Mo 1F:10.
Typed copy, roughly chronological, with witnesses, Mo 1F:1
RadnorLater handwritten copy, chronological starting 1682, De 15F:2
Different late list, chronological order starting 1680, De 15F:1
Later handwritten copy starting 1686, De 15F:1Abstracts with witnesses, De 15F:1.
A bare list taken from the minutes, starting 1682, De 15F:2.
Later abstracts (by Gilbert Cope), with witnesses, closed stack, FC County De.
ChesterLater copy, alphabetical order, Ch 22F:2.
Chronological order starting 1677, De 2F:1
Later copy, roughly chronological starting 1682, De 2F:1Abstracts with witnesses, in roughly chronological order, De 2F:1
ConcordLater handwritten copy, roughly chronological, De 9F:2Later handwritten copy, De 9F:2Later handwritten copy, few witnesses, De 9F:2.
Certificates with witnesses, alphabetical order with index, De 9F:1
DarbyLater handwritten copy, alphabetical order, De 13F:1Later handwritten copy, alphabetical order, De 13F:1List of marriages from the minutes, no witnesses, De 13F:1.
Newark/KennettA chronological list, Ch 9F:1, plus a later copy at Ch 9F:2.A later copy at Ch 9F:2A later list, in alphabetical order, Ch 3F:2

Finding the early Quaker vital records: published sources

The Quakers, as is often said, kept wonderfully detailed records, especially for marriages, births, and burials. The published sources for these  early vital records are readily available in libraries, but lack details that you might want to see. For example, they do not include the full marriage certificates, with the list of witnesses (often providing names of close family members). They might change the list of births or deaths from chronological to alphabetical order, causing you to miss details such as clusters of deaths in the summer months.  If you use them as a starting point to find your ancestors in the records, consider browsing the images in Ancestry to find more context. See the Ancestry files for Bucks and Philadelphia Counties, and for Chester County (including meetings that are now in Delaware County). Note that there are no published sources for the vital records of Abington Monthly Meeting.

If you are wondering how a marriage could be recorded as early as 1670, before there were any Quakers in Pennsylvania, some Friends brought their certificates with them from England and had them recorded by their new meeting. Like later marriage certificates, these early ones provide clues about the family and friends of the newly-married couple.

Published sources for early vital records

MeetingSourcesNotes
FallsWatring & Wright, Bucks County Church Records of the 17th and 18th Centuries, vol. 2Includes births starting about 1700, in alphabetical order.
Abstracts of marriage certificates (not including witnesses), starting 1704.
Also lists kept by Bucks Quarterly Meeting: a list of births and burials starting 1680 and a list of marriages starting 1685.
Middletown (originally called Neshaminy)(same as Falls)Births and burials in alphabetical order, starting about 1680.
Abstracts of marriage certificates (no witnesses) starting about 1680.
Also the lists kept by Bucks Quarterly Meeting (described above).
PhiladelphiaWatring, Early Quaker Records of Philadelphia, vol. 1Births and burials in alphabetical order, starting about 1688.
A chronological list of deaths and burials starting 1687.
Marriages in chronological order, starting in 1672, abstracts with no witnesses listed.
RadnorLauney, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 3Births and burials in alphabetical order, starting about 1682.
Abstracts of marriage certificates (no witnesses listed) in alphabetical order.
ChesterLauney & Wright, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 1Births and burials in alphabetical order, starting about 1683.
Abstracts of marriage certificates (no witnesses listed), in alphabetical order.
ConcordPeden & Launey, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 2Births and deaths in chronological order, starting about 1682.
Abstracts of marriage certificates (no witnesses), in alphabetical order.
DarbyLauney, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 3Births and burials in alphabetical order, starting about 1682.
Abstracts of marriage certificates starting about 1684, (no witnesses), in alphabetical order.
Newark/KennettReamy, Early Church Records of Chester County, vol. 3Births, marriages and deaths.

Early court records

You can use vital records to find your ancestors, but it is in the court records that the past comes alive. That is where you find out who menaced their neighbors with a gun at midnight, who repeated slanderous gossip, who misbehaved sexually, who shot their neighbor’s pig and hid the bacon in the out house. 1 You hear the voices of the people speaking in their own words, calling the jury sworn rogues or telling exactly what Nicholas Randall did to the wife of his master John Swift. 2 You follow the coroner and his men as they track the footprints of a distinctive boot to the swamp where they found 14 stolen deer skins hidden in a hollow tree. When they measured the shoe-print and compared it to John Martin’s shoe, it was found to be the same. John Martin was startled when they took off his shoe to measure it, but could not deny his guilt. 3

The most famous case in early Pennsylvania was not tried in a court, but in the Council, acting as a court on 12th mo 1683. Before William Penn, the Council, and a grand jury, Margaret Mattson, a Swede and the wife of Neels Mattson, was accused of being a witch. Henry Drystreet testified that he had been told she was a witch and could bewitch cows. Charles Ashcom testified that Mattson’s daughter saw a vision or dream of an old woman and a great light. Annakey Coolin and her husband boiled the heart of a calf that they thought to have died of witchcraft; Margaret saw them and said “unseemly expressions”. None of this convinced the jury, who ruled that she was not guilty of being a witch, only of “having the common fame” of one. 4

The record of the courts of Chester County and Bucks County have been preserved. The records of Philadelphia County court are unfortunately lost, except for a few early cases. We also have the record of the Upland Court, the precursor to Chester County court, from 1676 to 1681, and of Burlington Court, across the river in West Jersey. These hundreds of pages tell many stories.

Where to find the early court records

CourtOn Ancestry?Other sources:
Bucks County 1684-1700"Record of the courts of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas of Bucks County 1684-1700"A published version by Heritage Books in 2013
Burlington County 1680-1709"The Burlington Court Book: a record of Quaker jurisprudence in West New Jersey 1680-1709Snippet view only on Google Books
Chester County 1681-1699"Record of the courts of Chester County, volume 1"Available on Internet Archive, full view including pdf download
New CastleNot availableAvailable on Internet Archive as "Record of the court of New Castle on Delaware"; volume 1 is 1676-1681; volume 2 is 1681-1699
Upland"The Record of the court at Upland, in Pennsylvania : 1676 to 1681."Publications of the HSP, volume 4, 1860, full view on Google Books
The Provincial CouncilNot availableMinutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, volume 1, full view on Google Books
  1.  Owen Magdaniel and two cronies fired a pistol late at night at John Calvert’s window “to his and his wifes great afrightment”. Chester County Court 7th month 1692. Find the case of the stolen pig in Chester County Court on March 1682. Presumably when Anderson hid the stolen bacon in an out house, the reference was to an out-building, not necessarily what we would call an outhouse.
  2. Nicholas Randall laid with his head on Frances Swift’s lap, then took her into the barn at midnight, where “his mustard pot would work”. He called John Swift a cuckoldy rogue. Bucks County Court record, 4th month 1688.
  3. Chester County Court record, 4th month 1690. On the same day the court heard the case of Susannah Willard, convicted of fornication and bastardy with her step-father Ralph Dracott. Coincidentally Susannah’s sister Elizabeth later married Nicholas Randall.
  4. Minutes of the Provincial Council, volume 1, pages 95-96. About this time Neels Mattson sold his farm and moved to Gloucester County, West Jersey, according to Peter S. Craig, The 1693 Census of the Swedes on the Delaware, pages 69-70.

Finding the early vital records: Chester and Delaware Counties

There were four early Quaker meetings within the bounds of present-day Delaware County, plus one in Chester County. In the early years all this area was part of Chester County. 1 The records of Radnor Monthly Meeting are included in Delaware County, along with Concord and Darby. The records of Chester Monthly Meeting are split on Ancestry, between Chester County and Delaware County.

The earliest vital records of the meetings are found on Ancestry, just like the vital records of the early meetings in Bucks and Philadelphia Counties. If you have a subscription you can view the images there.

There are four sources of vital records for Chester Monthly Meeting, one each for births, burials and marriages, plus an early record book with a mix of births, burials, subscriptions for collections, and other material. With its original handwriting it is an evocative glimpse into the life of the meeting. The records of births and burials are later copies, probably around 1884, since the records stop there.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
ChesterBirths"Births 1677" (later copy, index in back)
ChesterBurials"Burials 1682" (later copy, no index)
ChesterMarriages"Certificates of marriage, record" (full certificates with witnesses, no index)
Chester (under Delaware County)Births, burials, marriages"Register Book 1681" (a mix of records, original handwriting)

The vital records of Concord are incomplete for the early years. The records of births and marriages start around 1693, with a few earlier births in another place, and there are no apparently no early deaths.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
ConcordMarriages, starting about 1693"Births and marriages 1693-1808" (certificates with witnesses)
ConcordBirths, early"Minutes 1680-1701" (actually births, early handwritten);
also "Minutes 1685-1931" (late copy, incomplete record)

Darby Monthly Meeting handled its early marriage certificates in a distinctive way. Instead of being copied into a register of their own, they are written in with the minutes in the proper chronological sequence. Once in a while the recorder left a blank space for the certificate, but it was never brought in to be copied. The record of births and burials starts early.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
DarbyMarriages, starting 1684"A few certificates and marriages 1684-1763" (marriages mixed with minutes, starting on Image 24)
DarbyMarriages, certificates"Marriage certificates 1694-1848" (later copy, index in back)
DarbyBurials"Births and burials 1682-1835" (handwritten original)
DarbyBirths"Births and burials 1682-1835" (handwritten original)

The Radnor vital records come in two forms: early handwriting and the neat transcript made by Gilbert Cope in the 1800s. In comparison to Concord meeting, Radnor has good coverage of the early years.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
RadnorBirths"Births 1682-1806" (handwritten original, with an index);
also "Births, deaths, marriages and certificates of removal (received) 1683-1730" (copy typed by Gilbert Cope, records mixed together in rough chronological order);
also in "Marriages, births and burial certificates 1684-1729" (original handwritten)
RadnorBurials"Marriages, births and burial certificates 1684-1729" (original handwritten);
also in the Cope transcript
RadnorMarriages"Marriages, births and burial certificates 1684-1729" (original handwritten);
also in the Cope transcript

Newark/Kennett meeting was originally called New Ark, later changed to Kennett. Don’t confuse it with the meeting in nearby Newark, Delaware. Ancestry lists its records for Kennett under Chester County, as they should be.

MeetingVital RecordAncestry file
Newark/KennettBirthsKennett Monthly Meeting: "Births and deaths 1686-1739"
Newark/KennettDeaths(same as above)
  1. The Welsh refused to acknowledge the existence of Chester County. They were angry when the boundary line was drawn between Philadelphia and Chester Counties, because it split their tract and diluted their political influence. They boycotted the court in Chester and insisted on attending Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting instead of Chester Monthly Meeting.

Finding the early Quaker vital records: Bucks and Philadelphia Counties

There are many sources for early Quaker vital records, sometimes overlapping, and some with more detail than others. Fortunately many of the best sources are available on Ancestry. This post will cover vital records to about 1700, but the principles will be the same even if you are searching for later records.

The vital records come in three varieties: images of pages, usually handwritten; manuscripts, and published books. There are arguments for using all of these.  It is much easier to read the typed or published copies. Someone else has already deciphered the early handwriting for you. But sometimes you want the scrawled originals —to see your ancestor’s signature or to get a more immediate feel for the event or because information there was not included in later copies.

In particular, for Quaker marriages you probably want to see the original certificate or a good abstract of it, because you want the list of people who witnessed the ceremony and signed the certificate.  The first witnesses to sign a marriage certificate were close family members, followed by friends and guests, so the list of witnesses can provide clues to family relationships. 1 The list also shows many of the members of the meeting at the time. 2

The images of many records are now available on Ancestry if you have a subscription, in the collection called Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935. In that collection they are organized by state, county, and meeting. Sometimes the Ancestry files are placed under the wrong county or meeting. If you can’t find a file by browsing, and you suspect it should exist, use a technique of searching instead. Choose someone that should be in a record, preferably with an uncommon name, and use the search boxes on the opening page of the Quaker Records. This will give you a list of hits. View the image and see whether you spot any misfiled files. For example for Falls Monthly Meeting, one early file is under Philadelphia County, Arch Street Meeting and another one is under Berks County, Exeter Meeting.

Where to find the vital records on Ancestry for Bucks and Philadelphia Counties

Falls Meeting had three early documents: one of intermingled births and burials, one of marriage certificates (with witnesses), and one of births recorded by the Quarterly Meeting. These are scattered around on Ancestry, along with a 1898 copy that included later records. The 1898 copy is easiest to read.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
Falls Monthly MtgBirths & burials, 1699-1788"Record of births and burials" (under Phila Arch St Meeting);
also in "Marriages, births and deaths 1699-1788" (under Berks County: Exeter Meeting)
Falls Monthly MtgMarriage certificates 1699-1759"Marriages, births and deaths 1699-1788", (Berks County: Exeter Mtg);
also in "Falls Copy Births Deaths Marriages" (under Bucks County: Falls) (the 1898 copy)
Falls Monthly MtgBirths 1680 on, recorded by Bucks Quarterly Meeting"Falls Copy Births Deaths Marriages" (Bucks County: Falls) (the 1898 copy)

Middletown Meeting had one early document, a collection of minutes, marriages, births and burials. There are two copies on Ancestry, differing mainly in the births and burials. The “Record of Commery” has the births in different order, and only a few burials. The mysterious “Commery” is someone’s error in reading the title page; it should actually be “Records commencing 1683”. 3

At first the responsibility of recording births and burials fell to the Bucks Quarterly Meeting. Their records can be found on Ancestry, listed under Philadelphia County, Arch Street Meeting. This is the only Ancestry file to show the early deaths. It is a mix of Falls and Middletown people, since in the earliest few years Middletown had not yet been split off as a monthly meeting. For example, the first birth is Mary, daughter of Lyonell and Elizabeth Britton of Falls; one of the first deaths is Thomas Walmsley, who owned land in Middletown.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
MiddletownMarriages 1684-1699"Minutes, marriages, certificates of removal, condemnations, births and burials" (also in "Records of Commery 1683")
MiddletownBirths, beginning in 1677Same as above, except that the order is different, and "Record of Commery" may have fewer.
MiddletownBurials, starting about 1726.Same as above. "Record of Commery" is missing most of the burials.
MiddletownBirths & burials recorded by Bucks Quarterly meeting, starting 1677Phila County: Arch Street Meeting: "Record of certificates of removal"

Philadelphia Monthly Meeting has two original documents, one for marriages and one for births and burials, plus a transcription of the births and burials made in 1876 by Gilbert Cope. The 1876 copy has an index and the records have been changed from chronological order to alphabetical. There is an identical copy of the 1876 transcript filed under Philadelphia Meeting Arch Street.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
Philadelphia Monthly MtgBirths and burials, roughly chronological"Births and burials, 1686-1807"
Philadelphia Monthly MeetingBirths and burials, A-Z order"Births deaths and burials, 1688-1826" (later copy with index)
Philadelphia Monthly MeetingList of marriages 1682-1769"Marriage certificates, 1682-1769" (a list, not certificates, taken from minutes)
Philadelphia Monthly MeetingMarriage certificates starting in 1672"Marriages, 1672-1759" (roughly chronological order) (certificates with witnesses)

There are two early documents for Abington Monthly Meeting, one of marriages and one of births and deaths. They are handwritten copies made in the 1700’s, so the signatures on the marriage certificates are not original. Ancestry places records of Abington Meeting under Montgomery County, which split off from Philadelphia County in 1784.

MeetingVital recordAncestry file
AbingtonBirths and deaths starting in 1682"Births and deaths, 1682-1809 vol. 1" (with an index, rough chronological order)
AbingtonMarriages starting in 1685"Marriages, 1685-1721" (copy of the certificates with witnesses)

 

  1. See Stewart Baldwin’s post on the Quaker-Roots Mailing List on Rootsweb, May 14, 2014.
  2. Non-Friends were allowed to attend marriage ceremonies and to sign the certificate as witnesses, although this was uncommon.
  3. Look carefully at Image 7 in the file.

Finding the early Quaker meeting minutes

In April 2014 it became much easier to find records of Quaker meetings. Before then, most minutes and vital records were accessible on microfilm at libraries such as Haverford and Swarthmore. When Ancestry posted its Quaker Collection, it made it possible to retrieve millions of records of meetings from 1681 to 1935.

Although the records on Ancestry are convenient, they can be difficult to use. It is possible to search for a name, but for the early records you cannot specify the date, so there are far too many hits. For example, Thomas Williams appears in the minutes of Burlington and Falls meetings around 1686 when he proposed to marry the widow Rebecca Bennett. If you search for Thomas Williams in the Quaker Collection, you get 19,471 hits, even if you specify an event in 1686. Needless to say, few if any of those are relevant. It is sometimes necessary to browse the minutes page by page to find events and stories.

To browse the records you need to find them. This can be hard because of the cryptic titles of records in the collection.  For example, for Middletown Monthly Meeting in Bucks County, one of the files is called “Meeting Minutes”. This is actually certificates. For Concord Monthly Meeting in Delaware County, “Minutes 1680-1701” is actually birth records.

There were nine monthly meetings established in Pennsylvania before 1700. The table shows the filenames that Ancestry uses for the early minutes of these meetings. To get to these (with a subscription to Ancestry), search the Card Catalog with keyword Quaker. The Quaker Meeting Records will be the first result. Use the boxes on the right to choose a state (Pennsylvania), county and monthly meeting. (Note that Abington is listed under Montgomery County, and Radnor, Darby and Concord are listed under Delaware County. Newark/Kennett is listed under Chester County.) 1

Monthly MeetingMen's minutes"Women's minutes
Falls"Minutes 1683 to 1730""Women's minutes 1683-1774" (Under Phila Arch Street Meeting)
Middletown"Minutes 1664-1807"; also "Record of Commery 1683" for the earliest minutes."Minutes 1683-1892"
Philadelphia"Minutes 1682-1705""Women's minutes 1686-1728" (under Phila Arch St)
Abington"Men's minutes 1682-1746"(Nothing known before 1773)
Radnor"Men's minutes 1684-86"; "...1693-99""Minutes 1685-1711"
Chester"Men's Minutes 1681-1721""Women's minutes 1695-1733"
Concord"Minutes 1683-1756"(Nothing known before 1715)
Darby"A few certificates and marriages, 1684-1763""Women's minutes 1684-1796"
Newark/Kennett"Births and deaths 1686-1739", minutes start at Image 37."Women's minutes 1690-1789"

To find what records exist for each meeting, and what years they cover, the ultimate source is the online catalog of the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College.

There are published abstracts of the minutes for seven of the earliest meetings, all except Abington. These do not include all of the minutes, focusing on genealogical events such as marriages. They are indexed, which makes them useful for seeing whether someone is named in the minutes. But they do not include most of the business of the meeting, and do not show who the leaders were.

MeetingPublished abstracts
PhiladelphiaWatring, Early Quaker Records of Philadelphia, vol. 1
RadnorLauney, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 3
ChesterLauney & Wright, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 1
ConcordPeden & Launey, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 2
DarbyLauney, Early Church Records of Delaware County, vol. 3
Falls and MiddletownWatring & Wright, Bucks County Church Records..., vol. 2
Newark/KennettOn USGenWeb Archive under New Castle County, to 1693

Transcripts of early minutes can save much time because they are easier to read than original handwriting, and sometimes include an index. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, has a collection of church records, originally held by the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania — the “green books”. These include transcripts of some of the early minutes, especially the men’s minutes.

MeetingCall number (HSP)Notes
PhiladelphiaPh 1F:7Early men's minutes, typed
AbingtonMo 1F:2Early men's minutes, neatly handwritten
FallsBu 7F:5Photostat of men's minutes, with an index at Bu 7F:5a
MiddletownBu 9F:4Men's minutes, neatly handwritten, with an index
DarbyDe 13F:2Women's minutes, handwritten with an index
RadnorDE 21F and De 15F:3Men's minutes, 1684-86 and 1693-1704
ChesterDe 2F:3 and De 2F:6Men's minutes, women's minutes
ConcordDe 9F:3Men's and women's minutes, with index
Newark/KennettCh 9F:3 and Ch 9F:6Men's minutes, women's minutes
  1. This meeting was originally called New Ark, later called Kennett. It was located in Chester County, near Kennett Square, and had no connection to a meeting later set up in Newark, Delaware.

Using early church records: Quakers

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 3rd 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.

  1. The proper name for the Quakers was the Society of Friends. They referred to each other as Friends. The term Quakers was originally given to them in ridicule. However they themselves occasionally used it, often in the form of “the people called Quakers”.
  2.  Occasionally this caused friction. When Middletown Monthly Meeting dealt with the wealthy landowner Joseph Growden over his lawsuit with John Gray, he tried to weasel out of it by declaring that he belonged to another meeting and refusing to give an account of his actions. (Men’s Minutes, 5th month 1687 through 4th month 1688). In 7th month 1699 the same meeting complained about the “slackness of the friends about the ferry that they never yet frequent this meeting”. A committee was sent to tell them that “they belong to this meeting and ought not make their appearance elsewhere”. In 10th month 1686 it was considered disorderly that Walter Forrest published his marriage intentions in another meeting, even though he followed the proper procedure in other ways.
  3. Non-Quakers could request to join the Society. The meeting would appoint a committee to investigate their good behavior and report to the meeting. Such requests were usually granted. Frequently a man asked to join, was approved, and some months later announced his intention to marry a woman of the meeting.
  4. To study appearance in the records, I counted members of Falls and Middletown monthly meetings to about 1688. There were 66 people who appeared in the meeting records but had no certificate of arrival. Another 42 had a certificate of arrival, and all but three of them appeared in other records as well. In other words it is likely that known members appear in the records, but some appear in only one place.
  5. For example, when Seamercy Adams and Mary Brett wanted to marry in 1687, she did not have a certificate and the Philadelphia Meeting asked her to bring some Friends who knew her in England to testify to her clearness for marriage. Minutes of Phila Mo Mtg, 7th mo 1687
  6. Of course women had little legal power in the larger sphere as well. They could not serve on juries, in political bodies, or in local offices. A married woman owned no property of her own; any property she had on the marriage became her husband’s. It was unusual for a married woman to make a will, until her husband died and she regained ownership of some of his property.

Identifying the people on Holme’s map

To understand the people you need to know who they are, identifying each one specifically.  It is not useful to generalize.  Once we know who they are, we can ask questions. Did they emigrate or were they absentee landowners? Were they largely Quakers? How did they make their living? Where were they from? This study is similar to other research that studied individual people, such as ship passengers (Marion Balderston), passengers on the Welcome (George McCracken), early residents of Philadelphia (Hannah Benner Roach), the Swedes along the Delaware (Peter Stebbins Craig), participants in early courts (Jack Marietta), the lawmakers of Pennsylvania (edited by Craig Horle and Marianne Wokeck). 1 Much of their work has been helpful in the process of identifying the people on Holme’s map.

Richard S. Dunn and Mary Maples Dunn published a list of the people in the third volume of the Papers of William Penn. They were missing a few such as Thomas Dungan, Edward Jones, and Joseph Milner. Otherwise their list was very thorough, including a location key for each name. 2

The first step in identifying the people was to match the names as spelled on the map with people or families known at the time. In most cases this was straightforward. Many of the names on the map were spelled like their modern equivalents, exactly or with minor changes such as Sweeft to Swift or Kerk to Kirk. Other names could be recognized with more substantial change, such as Banbrig to Bainbridge or Brainton to Brinton. These had to be verified with records to make sure that they were spelling variants instead of distinct names. In some cases apparent variants were actually different families. Hort is not the same as Hart. Blunston is not the same as Blinston.

The early population was not a large one, but in many cases two apparently unrelated people shared the same last name, for example Samuel Allen and Nathaniel Allen, William Bennet and Edmund Bennet, the various Colletts. 3 Sometimes only the last name was placed on the map, but the fact that they are placed in a particular location provides a powerful clue to which person was meant. Families usually emigrated together, settled near each other, and sometimes associated in land dealings. An interesting exception was the two men named Thomas Cross, settled in different counties. Their relationship is clear since the son (a carpenter of Chester County) died first and the father (a wheelwright of Philadelphia County) administered his estate. 4

Some names on the map needed to be deciphered. The English engraver probably introduced some errors when reading Holme’s manuscript: for example “Woolinne” for Woolman, “Braber Eli”, for Elizabeth Barber, “Sardarlan” for Sandelands, “Jo Nowell” for John Worrall, “Bowger” for “Bowyer”, “Darte” for “Darke”. In other cases the odd spelling reflects how the name was pronounced: Haukis for Hawkins, Brumadgam for Birmingham,  Hurst for Hayhurst and Frist for Forest. Philip Theodore Lehnmann, Penn’s private secretary, wrote his name as “Philip Th Lehnman”. The middle Th was often misread and his name appears on the map as Thlehnman and Taluman. There are a few errors that were probably Holme’s such as “Mouns Toker” for Mouns Stake, the Swede. 5.

The process of identifying the names was a lengthy one, requiring a search of many types of records. As more records were found the biography of each person sharpened and became more detailed. The goal was to find the key facts of origin, emigration, occupation, religion, and death. This meant finding one or more records of the person’s activity: typically emigration, marriage, death, land transaction, church membership, or court appearance. The sources included published records such as Quaker meeting minutes, land deeds, tax records, probate and more. Some genealogical research was also used, published or available online. This varies in quality, ranging from Gilbert Cope’s professional work to web pages with no evidence cited. These sources were not used unless there was evidence of careful research, typically by citing sources, preferably primary records.

Next: Using church records

 

  1. See Walter Sheppard, Passengers and Ships prior to 1684; George McCracken, The Welcome Claimants; Hannah B. Roach, Early Philadelphians; Peter Stebbins Craig, 1671 Census of the Delaware and 1693 Census of Swedes on the Delaware; Jack Marietta & G. S. Rowe, Troubled Experiment; Craig Horle and Marianne Wokeck, editors, Lawmaking and Legislators, especially volume 1.
  2. One name that should not have been on their list was that of “N Von” in Kingsessing. This was a misreading of the last name of the Swede Jonas Nelson.
  3. Other family names with unrelated branches include Atkinson, Bailey, Baker, Barnes, Bond, Brown, Buckley, Carter, Chamberlain, Clayton, Cook, Cox, Ellet, Ellis, Gibbons, Hall, Harding, Harrison, Hastings, Howell, Hudson, Johnson, Jones, King, Lloyd, Marsh, Martin, Mason, Moore, Noble, Palmer, Pickering, Potter, Powell, Richards, Roberts, Robinson, Simcock, Smith, Sneed, Swift, Taylor, Turner, Wheeler, Wood, Worrall.
  4. Perhaps as carpenters they did not wish to compete with each other.
  5. As will be discussed later, a few names were not identified and may represent errors by either Holme or the engraver

Holme’s map: What’s on it.

Holme’s map covered over 200,000 acres, from New Castle to the falls of the Delaware, about 55 miles across and 33 miles north from the river. 1. He plotted rivers like the Delaware and the Schuylkill, streams like the Neshaminy and the Poquessing, and marshes along the rivers. He showed the counties of New Castle, Bucks, Chester and Philadelphia, the outline of the city of Philadelphia and a few towns like Calcoon Hook. Of the twenty-one named rivers and creeks, one was an error, almost certainly by the engraver. “Filpot River” should be Shelpot Creek, a tributary of the Brandywine. Some of our waterways still keep the names on the map: the Delaware, the Schuylkill, the Brandywine, Frankford Creek, and Poquessing Creek among them.

Holme included the manors, large chunks of acreage that Penn reserved for his own family, to generate income through land rental and sales. 2 There were five in Penn’s name (Springettsberry, Rocklands, Highlands, Pennsberry, and Gilberts), one for his wife Gulielma (Springfield), and one each for his daughter Laetitia and son William (Mount Joy and Williamstadt). Other large tracts were granted to Penn’s relatives the Lowthers and to Nicholas More, president of the Society of Traders. 3

The special feature of Holme’s map is the names of landowners, each one placed on his or her land, about 780 names in all. This type of cadastral map, showing surveyed tracts of land, was unusual, almost unique for the early American colonies. 4 Many people owned more than one tract. There were about 620 unique personal names.

Holme omitted names of many who owned land at the time. Some tracts were not precisely known to him, like the land in the Northern Liberties, where he left out the settlers like Jurian Hartsfelder, Peter Cock, Swen Lom and others. He left out many of the Swedes who owned land along the two rivers before the English came, partly because he did not know exactly where their lands were, and partly because some of them lived in settlements like Chester and Marcus Hook, where the town lots were too small to show. The only place he expanded with an inset map was the city of Philadelphia itself.

Holme labelled several townships without any individual land holdings. He did not have the surveys for Haverford and Radnor, because his dishonest deputy Charles Ashcom had refused to give him exact returns of surveys. (Ashcom often surveyed larger tracts than he was supposed to, since he got paid as a proportion of the acreage.) Ashcom left for Maryland around 1686, and Holme simply left the Welsh townships blank.

Germantown was a special case. It had been settled in October 1683 by a group of thirteen families from Krefeld on the Rhine, and laid out like a European town with closely grouped lots strung along Germantown Road. The town lots were too small to be labeled with owners’ names, so once again Holme simply called the whole thing “German township Jacob Vandewall and company”. 5

It has been said that, “All maps are ideological statements about the world”. 6 Because most of the Welsh, Swedes, and Germans were omitted from the map, it has the effect of making the province seem more English. The tracts so neatly outlined and labeled make the land seem settled, tamed. The wilderness and its native inhabitants have been pushed back to the margins. The land has been advertised as safe for Englishmen, both settlers and investors.

  1. Klinefelter
  2. Lemon, Best Poor Man’s Country
  3. Technically the owner of a manor had feudal privileges like holding a court-baron, but no one in Pennsylvania used these in practice. See Soderlund, page 49.
  4. The Manatus map of New Amsterdam was very early and showed names of some landowners, but it is quite different from Holme’s map in content and design.
  5. For the unique nature of Germantown, see Urban Village by Stephanie Grauman Wolf.
  6. John Overholt, curator of rare books and manuscripts at Harvard, “Harvard finds 1769 New Jersey Map…”, New York Times, January 2, 2016.