First Families of Pennsylvania (FFP) is a lineage society open to any GSP member who can prove descent from a resident of what is now Pennsylvania during the time periods listed below:

•  Colony and Commonwealth: 1638–1790
•  Keystone and Cornerstone: 1791–1865
•  Pennsylvania Proud: 1866–1900

Purpose of the Program

The First Families program offers GSP members a way to honor their Pennsylvania ancestors at the same time they are preserving part of their research. Once an application is approved, members will receive a specially-designed membership pin and a certificate including the time period and the ancestor’s name. Presentations are made at the next Annual Meeting of the Society.

Ancestor Qualifications

The First Family ancestor must have been a resident of Pennsylvania during one of the three time periods listed above. Evidence submitted as proof must be sufficient to prove the ancestor’s residence in Pennsylvania during the selected period and to establish direct descent from the ancestor.

•  Membership Procedure
•  Application Form
•  Application Review
•  Documenting Descent and Residence
•  Ancestor Index
•  Guidelines for Evidence
•  Frequently Asked Questions

Membership Procedure

•  Identify a Pennsylvania ancestor.
•  Complete the application form.
•  Assemble the supporting documentation.
•  Prepare a check for the one-time fee of $40 per application, payable to GSP-FFP.
•  Keep a complete copy of your application materials.
•  Mail your application to:
        First Families of Pennsylvania
        Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania
        2207 Chestnut Street
        Philadelphia, PA 19103

Applications may be submitted at any time during the year. However, only those received by 30 October are guaranteed to be reviewed before the next Annual Meeting in March of the following year. The submitted application and all supporting documents become the property of GSP.

Application Form

The application for is designed to present lineage information and source citations on the same line. Note that the final application form must be computer-generated or typed for legibility. Working versions may be handwritten if desired.

Two application forms are available:
•  Portable Document Format (.pdf) to fill out by hand or typewriter.
•  Rich Text Format (.rft) to fill out by computer.
Click here for more information or to download an application form.

Application Review

Once an application is received in the GSP office, it is assigned to a Membership Committee volunteer for review. The volunteers are all trained in verifying lineage society applications. After completing their review, they notify the applicant with review results. If additional materials are needed, applicants are given the opportunity to submit it.

Documenting Descent and Residence

Documentation must be sufficient to prove generation by generation that the applicant is directly descended from the claimed ancestor by blood line. The evidence must prove residence of the ancestor by the claimed date and it must substantiate all the names, dates, and places presented on the application. It must also be sufficient to differentiate between any two persons of the same name residing in the same area at the same time.

Primary evidence found in original records or actual copies of original records is always the strongest proof. Examples include vital, court, probate, and land records. Also acceptable are baptismal and marriage certificates, obituaries, cemetery, and school records, among many others.

Secondary evidence such as census records, newspaper accounts, etc. are generally considered corroborative evidence and rarely are sufficient alone.

Quality of evidence is more important than quantity. It is not necessary to submit a baptismal record and hospital birth certificate in addition to a government-issued birth certificate unless the second document is being used to establish another fact.

The applicant’s name and address should appear on the reverse of every piece of paper submitted.

Each document submitted should carry a complete citation on the front of the document. Examples of proper citations may be found in Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2007). Each document should also carry a generation reference on the front.

Married female applicants must include a copy of their marriage record if they use their husband’s surname.

Approved Ancestors and Ancestor Index

The List of Approved Ancestors gives the qualifying ancestors—those whose residency in Pennsylvania falls within one of the required time periods—from First Families applications approved to date.

The Ancestor Index presents individuals in the line of descent from previously approved applications. It includes only those generations born before 1900, linked to both their spouse and their parent who is also in the line of descent. Dates of birth and death are included to help distinguish individuals of the same name. Click here for the Ancestor Index.

Guidelines for Documentation

1. In all cases the best possible documentation should be submitted. Official civil records of birth, death, and marriage should be submitted whenever possible.
2. Documents must state the fact they are documenting. Information should not be “added” to a document. For example:
   1. An individual named as “heir” in a will is not necessarily related to the deceased.
   2. The 1850–1870 census records suggest, but do not prove family relationships.
   3. A birth date calculated by subtracting age from the date of an event (such as age 23 at marriage in 1870) can only be considered an approximate date and should be indicated as “about.”
   4. A cemetery record proves the place of burial but not necessarily the place of death.
   5. If the record gives only a county name, don’t add the city or town unless it appears on another submitted document.
3. Family Bible records may be considered primary evidence if event dates are contemporary with the publication of the Bible. A copy of the title page should be included along with the current location of the Bible if known.
4. County histories and undocumented family histories, whether published and unpublished, are secondary or corroborative evidence.
5. Documented family histories, both published and unpublished, vary greatly in the quality and amount of source information they provide. Therefore their acceptance as documentation is at the discretion of the First Families committee.
6. Letters, diaries, and family records are acceptable if they state facts the writer could have known “first hand.” The identity of the writer and date of the document are necessary.
7. Lineage papers from other societies are not considered documentation.
8. Photocopies of documents are acceptable.
9. Transcriptions of documents must be accompanied by a copy of the original document.
10. Foreign language documents may be included only with a translation signed by the translator.
11. All documents must be legible.
12. Tombstone photographs must be legible and accompanied by a transcription of the stone that includes the name and location of the cemetery.
13. Avoid highlighting parts of a document. Highlighting obscures the very words that are important when the document is copied. Emphasize pertinent portions by underlining or placing arrows in the margin.
14. Avoid over-documenting. It's not necessary to include every document you have for an ancestor. Select those that provide the best quality evidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

I am a current First Families member and want to complete an application for my children and grandchildren. Do they also need to be members of GSP?

Yes, according to the program rules, they do.

May I submit more than one application?

Yes, you may submit as many applications as you wish. The one-time application fee of $40 applies to each application.

May I name than one ancestor on a single application?

Yes, as long as each one is part of the direct line between the applicant and the earliest ancestor named and they all fall into the same time period. An application may name as qualifying ancestors, for example, the qualifying ancestor, his child, and his grandchild.

What about adopted children?

The First Families program is only open to those who can prove blood line descent from the claimed ancestor.

What types of records can be used to prove residence?

Tax records, deeds that indicate date of purchase or sale, dated deeds in which an ancestor appears as a neighbor, deeds or wills which the ancestor witnessed, land grants, military service, and census and church records are among the many records that prove residence in an area on a specific date.

What happens if I need to submit additional materials?

You may continue to add documentation to your application as long as it is active. Applications that are inactive for two years will be discarded.

May I submit my application via email?

Since application forms must be signed and accompanied by the appropriate documentation, there are no plans to allow online submission of application materials.

If my ancestor appears in the Ancestor Index, do I have to submit documentation for the generations I share with the application?

While you do not have to establish Pennsylvania residency, your application and supporting materials must document every generation in your own lineage from the ancestor to you.

A close relative has already had our joint lineage approved for First Families. Do I have to complete the entire application form?

GSP identifies the following as close relatives: parent, grandparent, siblings, aunts and uncles, and great-aunts and great-uncles. If your relationship falls into one of those listed, then you may use the “short form” procedure. You must submit a completed application form that describes the descent from the ancestor to yourself. However, you need submit documentation only for the generations that differ from your relative's lineage. At the most recent generation that appears on both applications, you should note “See application of [name of relative,” approved on [date].”

What will happen to my completed application form?

GSP plans to preserve the complete application and supporting materials in digital form as part of its mission to preserve genealogical materials. An index to applications (excluding individuals born after 1900 to address privacy concerns) is part of the GSP web site and scanned applications (following the same restrictions) will appear in the Members Only portion of the web site in the future. As time and resources allow, the entire application package will be scanned for preservation.