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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.