#29 Royal Descents, Notable Kin, and Printed Sources: A Bibliographic & Geographic Survey of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, Part 2
Gary Boyd Roberts
The first major source for
New York and New Jersey is a considerable periodical literature – The New
York Genealogical and Biographical Record (since 1869), plus subject indexes
by Jean Worden, vols. 1-113, and Harry Macy, vols. 114-125, and multi-ancestor
and other journal subject indexes by Henry Hoff in recent issues of the NYG
& B Newsletter; Yearbooks of the Holland Society and the Dutch
Settlers of Albany Society; New-York Historical Society Collections;
The Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey (indexed through vol. 50); New
Jersey Genesis; and New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings.
Journal consolidations include Genealogies of Long Island Families,
Long Island Source Records (both from the Record) and
Genealogies of New Jersey Families (from GMNJ). Mugbook indexes
include an unpublished New York compilation by Gunther Pohl, formerly of the New
York Public Library, and New Jersey Biographical Index (1993) by D. A.
Sinclair.
Published source records include N.Y. and N.J. census indexes,
1790-1860, and NYC 1870; the N.Y. Historical Manuscripts series, and
N.J. Archives (with will abstracts through 1817); church records compiled by
Arthur Kelly or Jean Worden, plus the Vosburgh Collection; and newspaper data –
N.Y. Times Obituary Index and Personal Name Index, Herald
marriages and obituaries, plus works of Gertrude Barber (N.Y. Evening
Post and many county vols.), Kenneth Scott, and F. Q. Bowman (the 10,000
Vital Records series, for eastern [2 vols.], central and western N.Y.).
Passenger list volumes comprise a considerable library themselves. The volumes
of P. W. Filby and Mary K. Meyer cover the colonial period. The recent
Passenger Arrivals at the Port of New York, 1820-1829 may be followed by
future CD or on-line compilations. Famine Immigrants, 7 vols. (1846-51)
covers the heaviest period of Irish immigration, and is supplemented by The
Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the
Boston Pilot, 8 vols. (7 to date, covering 1831-1876; vol. 8, for 1877-1920,
is due later this year). Germans to America (60 vols. to date) covers
German ships beginning in 1850; Italians to America (10 vols. to date)
lists Italians from 1880; and Immigration from the Russian Empire (6
vols. to date) lists Polish and Jewish immigrants from 1875.
Partial
genealogical dictionaries include Jonathan Pearson on Albany and Schenectady
families; Bergen on Kings Co. (Brooklyn Dutch); F. Mather and H. F. Seversmith
on Long Island, with town histories/genealogies of East Hampton, Southampton
(weak) and Shelter Island; Hank Jones on Palatines; Penrose on Mohawk Valley
families; Barker on Herkimer Co. families; and Frank Doherty’s mammoth
Settlers of the Beekman Patent (4 vols. to date). New Jersey compilations
include Stillwell’s Historical and Genealogical Miscellany (5 vols.) on
Monmouth Co.; Monnette on Piscataway (use the compiled genealogy with caution);
and Charles Carroll Gardner’s Genealogical Dictionary of New Jersey,
A-ANT in Genealogies of New Jersey Families, with the remainder on film
at NEHGS (the original is in the collections of the New Jersey Genealogical
Society at Rutgers University in New Brunswick).
In general, the
statewide vital records for New York and New Jersey begin very late; relative to
New England there are far fewer agnate or multi-ancestor genealogies (although
still a sizable number); but there is a huge mugbook/county history literature,
rich also for Pennsylvania and most midwestern states.
Turning to
Pennsylvania, I wish first to note its division into five "elliptical circles" –
English Quakers in Philadelphia proper, Welsh Quakers of the "Main Line,"
Germans ("Pennsylvania Dutch") in the second tier of counties neighboring
Philadelphia; the Scots and Scots-Irish in western Pennsylvania; and New
Englanders in the Wyoming and Susquehanna Valleys, often en route to the
Midwest. The English Quaker followers of William Penn become a Philadelphia
mercantile oligarchy, produce the cosmopolitan center of the American
Revolution, and in the nineteenth century become an upper-class, Episcopalian,
merely regional élite (see E. Digby Baltzell’s Philadelphia Gentlemen).
Early leaders include Penn (whose daughter-in-law, Lady Juliana Fermor, and
granddaughter-in-law, Christian Forbes, were both RD), James Logan
(Scots RD), and Deputy Gov. Thomas Lloyd (Welsh RD). The early
Thomas Lloyd progeny in Philadelphia consists of Carpenters, Dickinsons, Logans,
Moores, Morrises, Norrises, Pembertons, Prestons, and Whartons; Thomas’s
brother, English Quaker ur-father Charles Lloyd of Dolobran, was a
forebear of British Barclays, Birkbecks, Bosanquets, Buxtons, Forsters, Foxes,
Gurneys, Hanburys, Hodgkins, Peases, Pellys, and Wordsworths. See especially G.
E. McCracken’s The Welcome Claimants: Proved, Disproved and Doubtful,
Keith’s The Provincial Councillors of Pennsylvania, J. W. Jordan’s Colonial
and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania, 3+ vols., and Bucks Co. works by
C. V. Roberts (plus his Roberts-Walton multi-ancestor study).
Among "Main
Line" Welsh Quakers – of Merion, Gwynedd, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, etc. – are
RD Cadwaladers, Edwardses, Evanses, Foulkes, Humphreys, Jonese,
Morgans, Owenses, and Robertses (see T. A. Glenn’s Welsh Founders of
Pennsylvania, 2 vols., plus histories of Merion and Gwynedd, and various
TAG articles correcting several Welsh origins that Glenn suggests). These
Welsh families are very largely absorbed into the mercantile oligarchy and
upper-class, later Episcopalian élite mentioned above, as demonstrated by the
progeny of RD immigrant John Cadwalader. His descendants intermarry
with or become Lamberts, Lloyds of Md., Ringgolds of Md., Bonds, Biddles,
Gouverneurs of N.Y., Mitchells, Merediths, Reads, Dickinsons and Goldsboroughs
of Md., and Morrises, plus, in Great Britain and on the Continent, Barons
Erskine, Dukes of Portland and Argyll, Counts Paumgarten and Törring-Jettenbach,
and Archdukes of Austria.
The Germans or "Pennsylvania Dutch" lived
firstly in Lancaster, Berks, Lehigh and Northampton Cos. Immigrating between the
1710s and 1770s, especially around 1750, they virtually swamped the English and
Welsh Quakers, established various churches and sects, and often migrated
further via the Shenandoah Valley to western Virginia, N.C., S.C., and
Tennessee. They made some contribution to Philadelphia’s upper class – Peppers
and Wisters, later Drexels (of the Institute), Wanamakers (of the department
store), and Wideners (of the Harvard library) – but were a separate culture and,
like the N.Y. Dutch, are a genealogical specialty. See articles by Milton
Rubincam in Genealogical Research: Methods and Sources, guides by
Clifford Neal Smith and Angus Baxter, origins studies by Annette Burgert (and
Hank Jones), passenger lists by Strassburger and Hinke, and Pennsylvania
German Church Records, 3 vols., and Marriages (D. R. Irish), 1
vol.
The next column will briefly discuss the Scots, Scots-Irish and New
Englanders in Pennsylvania, the progeny of Dep. Gov. Thomas Lloyd, major sources
for Pennsylvania as a whole, and Delaware.