Pennsylvania Colonial Records

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Colonial Records

Online Records

Many records from the colonial era in New England were kept at the town or county level. Search the catalog at the town or county level to locate those records.

• 1676-1960 - Patent books, Pennsylvania Bureau of Land Records - images only.
• 1682-1748 - Index to old rights in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Surveyor General - images only.
• 1682-1761 - Index to old rights in Bucks and Chester Counties, Pennsylvania Surveyor General - images only.
• 1682-1815 - Board of Property petitions, undated - images only
• 1682-1850 - Proprietary paper, Pennsylvania Surveyor General - images only
• 1682-1850 - Board of Property Papers - images only
• 1682-1920 - Original surveys, Pennsylvania Surveyor General - images only +++
• 1682-1950 - Warrant register, index to surveys, warrants, and patents - images only.
• 1683-1702 - Original purchase, Pennsylvania Land Office - images only
• 1683-1820 - Depositions - images only
• 1683-1859 - Record of land surveyed by the Deputy Surveyors - images only
• 1683-1950 - County surveys, 1683-1859 : [listing of surveyors by county] - images only
• 1687-1820 - Mortgage records - images only
• 1699-1890 - Caveats - images only
• 1703-1744 - Rent rolls, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Land Office - images only +++
• 1720-1739 - Registrar book, Chancery Court - images only
• 1734-1865 - Applications for warrants, Pennsylvania Land Office - images only
• 1738-1773 - Land office journals - images only +++
• 1740-1783 - Naturalization lists - images only.
• 1751-1829 - Proprietary towns - images only
• 1757-1865 - Island records (sales, surveys, appraisals, etc.) - images only
• 1765-1769 - East and West side applications, Pennsylvania Surveyor General - images only
• 1769-1843 - Nicholson lands-commissioner's return of sale - images only
• 1774-1788 - Mortgage books, Pennsylvania General Land Office - images only +++
• 1781-1801 - Perpetuation of testimony docket - images only.

History

The first European settlement in Pennsylvania was a Dutch settlement built in 1623 along the Delaware Bay. Virginians built a fort near the Schuylkill River in 1634, and the Swedes built a colony in 1643 on Tincum Island (it was taken over by the Dutch in 1655 and the British in 1664). In 1681 William Penn was granted proprietary rights, and English Quakers arrived the following year. As settlements grew, France claimed land in western Pennsylvania, and many British and French forts and settlements were besieged or destroyed during the French and Indian War prior to its end in 1763. Pennsylvania was one of the original thirteen colonies of the United States.

Earliest Church Records	Earliest Land Records	Earliest Court Records	Earliest Newspapers
1683	1683	1683	1719

Resources

Church Records

• Abstracts and Identifications of Entries Giving European Origins in Church Records of South Central Pennsylvania by South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society.
• Catholic Goshenhoppen Registers, Nos. 1 and 3 by Warren J. Ziegler. (Milford, NJ: The Author, 1983).
• Catholic Trails West: The Founding Catholic Families of Pennsylvania by Edmund J. Adams. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988).
• Colonial records of the Swedish churches in Pennsylvania edited by Peter Stebbins Craig. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Swedish Colonial Society, 2006-2009).
• The Early History of the Church of the United Brethren (Unitas Fratrum), Commonly Called Moravians, in North America, A.D. 1734-1748 by Levin Theodore Reichel. (Nazareth, PA: Moravian Historical Society, 1888).
• Early History of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania by Daniel Miller. (Reading, PA: The Author, 1906).
• History of the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania, 1638-1820, from Original Sources by Theodore E. A. Schmauk. 2 Vols. (Lancaster: Pennsylvania German Society, 1903).
• Memorial Volume of Welsh Congregationalists in Pennsylvania: Their Churches, Periodical Convocations, Clergy and Prominent Lay Members by David Jones. (n.p., 1934).
• Pastors and people: German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field, 1717-1793 by Charles H. Glatfelter. 2 Vols. (Breinigsville: Pennsylvania German Society, 1980).
• Pennsylvania German Marriages: Marriages and Marriage Evidence in Pennsylvania German Churches by Donna R. Rish. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982).
• Presbyterians in Colonial Pennsylvania by Guy Soulliard Klett. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937).
• Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 29 Vols. (Philadelphia: The Society, 1887-1912).
• The Record Book of Daniel Schumacher, 1754-1773: Containing Registers of Baptisms and Confirmations in Berks, Lehigh, Northampton, and Schuylkill Counties, Pennsylvania by Frederick S. Weiser. (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1993).
• The Reformed Church in Pennsylvania by Joseph Henry Dubbs. (Lancaster: Pennsylvania German Society, 1902).
• Reformed Church Records in Pennsylvania Arranged According to Their Age, 1731-1880 by William John Hinke. (n.p., n.d.).

Court Records and Histories

• Courts and Lawyers of Pennsylvania: A History, 1623-1923 by Frank Marshall Eastman. 3 Vols. (New York: American Historical Society, 1922).
• Genealogical Research in the Published Pennsylvania Archives by Sally A. Weikel. (Harrisburg: State Library of Pennsylvania, 1974).
• General index to the colonial records in 16 volumes prepared and arranged under an act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania by Samuel Hazard. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Joseph Sevens and Co., 1860).
• Guide to the Published Archives of Pennsylvania Covering the 138 Volumes of Colonial Records and Pennsylvania Archives, Series I-IX by Henry Howard Eddy. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1949, 1976).
• Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania from the organization to the termination of the proprietary government by Pennsylvania. Provincial Council, 1682-1776. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : State of Pennsylvania, 1851-1852). Vols. 1-10, 11-16.
• The Registrar's Book of Governor Keith's Court of Chancery of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1720-1735. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Bar Association, 1941).

German Settlements

• A collection of upwards of thirty thousand names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and other immigrants in Pennsylvania from 1727 to 1776, with a statement of the names of ships, whence they sailed, and the date of their arrival at Philadelphia, chronologically arranged, together with the necessary historical and other notes, also, an appendix containing lists of more than one thousand German and French names in New York prior to 1712 by Israel Daniel Ruff. (1876. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1965).
• Eighteenth-Century Emigrants from German-Speaking Lands to North America by Annette Kunselman Burgert. 2 Vols. (Breinigsville: Pennsylvania German Society, 1986).
• The German Immigration into Pennsylvania Through the Port of Philadelphia from 1700 to 1775: Part 2, The Redemptioners by Frank R. Diffenderffer. (Lancaster: Pennsylvania German Society, 1900).
• The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania: A Study of the So-Called Pennsylvania Dutch by Levi Oscar Kuhns. (1901. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1979).
• Pennsylvania German Immigrants, 1709-1786: Lists Consolidated from Yearbooks of the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society by Don Yoder. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980).
• Pennsylvania German Pioneers: A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia From 1727 to 1808 by Ralph Beaver Strassburger. 2 Vols. (1934. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1966).
• The Relations Between the Pennsylvania Germans and the British Authorities, 1750-1776 by Arthur D. Graeff. (Norristown, PA: Norristown Herald, 1939).

Land Records

• A Guide to Genealogical Sources at the Pennsylvania State Archives by Robert Dructor. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1980).
• Guide to the Mortgages of the General Loan Office of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1724-1756 by James M. Duffin. (Philadelphia: Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 1995).
• Pennsylvania Land Records, A History and Guide for Research by Donna B. Munger. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1991).
• View of the Land Laws of Pennsylvania by Thomas Sergeant. (Laughlin: Southwest Pennsylvania Genealogical Services, 1992).
• Virginia Court Records in Southwestern Pennsylvania by Boyd Crumrine. (1902-1905. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981).

Manuscript Collections

• Guide to Depositories of Manuscript Collections in Pennsylvania by Historical Records Survey. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1939).
• Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. (Philadelphia: The Society, 1991)

Newspaper Abstracts

• Abstracts from Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1748 by Kenneth Scott. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing CO., 1975).
• Abstracts from Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, April 17, 1755 to December 27, 1764 by Frances Schive Smith. 3 Vols. (Magnolia, NJ: A. W. Smith, 1990).
• Abstracts from the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1748-1755 by Kenneth Scott and J. R. Clarke. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977).
• Genealogical Abstracts from the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1746 by Kenneth Scott. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1974).
• Genealogical Data from the Pennsylvania Chronicle, 1767-1774 by Kenneth Scott. (Washington, DC: National Genealogical Society, 1971).
• Genealogical Data Relating to the German Settlers of Pennsylvania and Adjacent Territory from Advertisements in German Newspapers Published in Philadelphia and Germantown, 1743-1800 by Edward E. Hocker. (1935. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980).
• Pennsylvania Newspapers: A Bibliography and Union List by Ruth Salisbury. (Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania Library Association, 1969).
• Runaway Servants, Convicts, and Apprentices Advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1796 by Farley Grubb. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992).

Other

• Colonial Pennsylvania: A History by Joseph E. Illick. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976).
• Emigrants to Pennsylvania, 1641-1819: A Consolidation of Ship Passenger Lists from the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography by Michael Tepper. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1975).
• A Guide to the Genealogy/Local History Section of the State Library of Pennsylvania by South Library of Pennsylvania. (Harrisburg: The library, 1985).
• Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750, with Their Early History in Ireland by Albert Cook Myers. (1902. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1969).
• Passengers and Ships Prior to 1684: Reprints of Articles with Corrections, Additions and New Materials by Walter Lee Sheppard. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970).
• Pennsylvania Genealogical Library Guide by John W. Heisey. (Elverson, PA: Olde Springfield Shoppe, 1994).
• The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania by Wayland F. Dunaway. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
• Welsh Founders of Pennsylvania by Thomas Allen Glenn. (1911. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970).
• Westerwald to America: Some Eighteenth-Century German Immigrants by Annette Kunselman Burgert and Henry Z. Jones. (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1989).

To view online images that are "locked" (as indicated by a key over the camera), you must visit a Family History Center or an Affiliate library. Go to the Family History Center and Affiliate Library Locator map for locations.