Quaker Resources

Prepared for FGS and GSP by Claire Keenan Agthe

From the time of William Penn, Quakers have played an important role in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Indiana, and many other locales. If you're interested in Quaker research, don't miss Thursday's presentations: Kay Haviland Freilich on “Were Your Ancestors Friends? Finding and Using Quaker Records” and George Redmonds on “Surnames of Quaker Families in Yorkshire Source – Some Difficult and Disputed Origins.”

Search the premier collections of Quaker Meeting Records (for the Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York Yearly Meetings, as well as the Illinois, Lake Erie, Ohio, Pacific, South Central, and Southern Appalachia Yearly Meetings), family and personal papers, art and photos, organizational records, and more, at Swarthmore College and Haverford College, a quick train or car ride out to the Philadelphia suburbs. See Swarthmore College, Friends Historical Library -- http://www.swarthmore.edu/fhl.xml -- and Haverford College, Magill Library, Quaker and Special Collections -- http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/collections/quaker.html.

Read about the Blue Laws, particular Quaker families, Quaker history and memoirs, primarily in English or German, at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Search HSP's OPAC catalog here -- http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=17 -- and take a brief walk to HSP from the Convention Center to review the materials that interest you.

Consult Quaker memoirs, research guides, and other Quaker writings at the Free Library of Philadelphia; the Central Library is a moderate walk from the Convention Center. Search the FLP library here -- http://know.freelibrary.org/.

Want some tourism with your research? Check out the Quaker-related sites in and near Philadelphia at http://www.quakerinfo.org/resources/philasites.html.