Index to Encyclopedia to American Quaker Genealogy [Prepared by Martha Reamy] [Paperback]

DearREADERS, "Totally thrilled" describes my feelings as I received my copy of the index to our library's copy of William Wade Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy 1750-1930. This past summer I discovered I have Welsh and English Quaker ancestry in Chester County, PA. (Merion on the Welsh Tract.) Prior to this I'd had no personal experience doing Quaker Research.

When I asked others about Quaker Research, they raved about Mr. Hinshaw's six volume compilation of Friend's Monthly Meeting records listing births, deaths, marriages and removals. That last term refers to entries in the church books when Society of Friends members moved from one area to another. They were removed from the old Monthly Meeting membership in order to join the new group.

We're fortunate to have Mr. Hinshaw's complete set of Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy at our local public library. As I uncover new names to research, I'll be turning again and again to Henshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy.

From the publisher: "William Wade Hinshaw's renowned Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, originally published between 1936 and 1950. Containing approximately 500,000 entries.. each volume ha[s] a separate surname index..."

"Almost no class of records, religious or secular, has been kept as meticulously as the monthly meeting records of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The oldest such records span three centuries of American history and testify to a general movement of population that extended from New England and the Middle Atlantic states southward to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; then west to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The importance of these records cannot be overstated. Not until recently have the vital statistics of Quakers been recorded in civil record offices.

Thus, for more than two centuries, the only vital records identifying these people are to be met with in the Quaker records themselves. Fortunately, the monthly meeting records contain extensive lists of births, marriages, and deaths, as well as details of the removal of members from one meeting to another. (The monthly meeting, during which vital statistics are recorded, is in fact, a business meeting.)"

Painstakingly developed from these monthly meeting records, Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy is the magnum opus of Quaker genealogy. In its production, thousands of records were located and abstracted into a uniform and intelligible system of notation. The data gathered in these volumes of the Encyclopedia are arranged by meeting, then alphabetically by family name, and chronologically thereunder. Volume 1: NORTH CAROLINA Volume II: NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA Volume III: NEW YORK Volume IV: OHIO Volume V: OHIO Volume VI: VIRGINIA"

If as the publisher suggests, 50% of our pre-1850 US ancestors were Quaker, than every researcher needs a personal copy of the index, and every genealogy library needs the six volume Encyclopedia!