Genealogy and Ancestry.com

An intensive project between Haverford, Swarthmore, Guilford, and Earlham Colleges and Ancestry.com worked to make Quaker records at these institutions more accessible to a broad audience. Over the course of several years of scanning microfilm and original documents, more than 7 million specifically Quaker records are available on Ancestry.com. The records are available through regular searching on Ancestry.com, as well as being browsable. This guide will show how to do both of these kinds of work.

If you are on the campus of one of the four Colleges mentioned, you should be able to access Ancestry.com through their online catalog. See the link below for access from Haverford, Bryn Mawr, or Swarthmore Colleges.

If you are a member of one of these campuses (student, faculty, staff) you can access this website when you are off campus by using the e-proxy link when you go to the links below.

If you are not on our campuses, or a member of one of these campuses, you can subscribe individually to Ancestry.com, or, often a local public or university libraries have subscriptions available to their members.

While there are at least 76 collections with Quaker collections in Ancestry.com, here is a highlight of the commonly used resources on Haverford College's campus:

• U.S. and Canada, Quaker Yearly Meeting Annual Reports, 1808-1930 (116,253 items)
  • This collection is not indexed, but is browsable. It contains volumes of minutes from more than 20 Yearly Meetings.
• U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol I–VI, 1607-1943 (356,712 items)
  • This is published work from William Wade Hinshaw, and includes vital facts relating to Quakers in 6 states (North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia).
• U.S., Hinshaw Index to Selected Quaker Records, 1680-1940 (887,019 items)
  • This index is William Wade Hinshaw's Index to Unpublished Records, housed at Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. It contains records extracted from minutes of 300 Monthly Meetings across the United States.
• U.S., Index to Quaker Obituary Notices, 1822-2012  (79,196 items)
  • This is a digital recreation of the "Quaker Necrology" index cards created by the staff of the Quaker & Special Collections at Haverford College. It is arranged alphabetically by last name, and contains citations for journals where obituaries can be found of individuals.
• U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935 (6,427,235 items)
  • This is a collection of digitized original materials from the colleges listed above. One quirk while browsing this collection is that after choosing the state a meeting is in, you will need to know the county the meeting is in.
• U.S., Quaker Periodicals, 1828-1929 (39,614 items)
  • This collection contains 60 Quakers publications from around the world.
  • Please note: this collection is browsable alphabetically, and if a title has "The" at the beginning of it, you will fit it under "T" instead of the rest of the title. See: "The Evangelical Friend" is listed under The instead of E.

There are two main ways to find Quaker records through Ancestry.com:

1. Through a general search
2. Through a specific database search

Use the links in the side bar to learn how to navigate these to search for ancestors or to browse through Quaker records.