Pennsylvania German Church Records, 1729-1870

This data set reproduces the pages from all three volumes of Pennsylvania German Church Records — a collection of all the church records ever published in the Proceedings and Addresses of the Pennsylvania German Society. These records reference approximately 91,000 individuals, giving information about births, baptisms, marriages, burials, and more. You will find the names of parents and children, husbands and wives, and even witnesses and sponsors.

The majority of the records fall between 1729 and 1870. They come from twelve churches and one cemetery in the heart of Pennsylvania German ("Pennsylvania Dutch") country, including Bucks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, and York counties. Because church records have long been thought of as the backbone of Pennsylvania German genealogy, this collection is indispensable for anyone interested in Pennsylvania German origins.

The original set of bound books contained an Introduction written by Don Yoder. To see his introductory remarks, which provide background information about these records, click here.

The records for each church are generally arranged by year. The first page of each year's records is marked with the year at the top. Note that in Volume 1, some years are written in Roman numerals rather than our everyday Arabic numbers. For example, instead of "1847" you would see "MDCCCXLVII."

Some of the pages in the original books were printed sideways. To make it easier for you to read them on your computer monitor, Genealogy.com rotated these pages to the upright position. Note that the odd-numbered pages that had to be rotated do not have headings at the top like most other pages.

Occasionally you will find German text in the records, along with the English translation. The German text was included in this data set so that those who understand German have the option of reading the original.

While the majority of the records are about individuals who lived in Pennsylvania, you will find a small percentage that refers to people from New Jersey. This is because it was popular for couples from New Jersey to travel to Philadelphia for their marriage and honeymoon.

The records from the twelve churches and one cemetery appear on this Internet data set in the order listed below.

• Trinity Lutheran Church of Lancaster
• First Reformed Church of Lancaster
• Augustus Evangelical Lutheran Church of Trappe, New Providence Township, Montgomery County
• St. Michaelis and Zion Congregation of Philadelphia
• United Reformed and Lutheran Church of Hopewell Township, York County
• Williams Township Congregation of Saucon, Northampton County
• Lutheran Church of New Hanover, Montgomery County
• Old Moravian Cemetery of Bethlehem
• New Goshenhoppen Reformed Congregation, Upper Hanover Township, Montgomery County
• Old Goshenhoppen Reformed Congregation, Upper Salford Township Montgomery County
• Great Swamp Reformed Congregation, Lower Milford Township, Lehigh County
• Tohickon Reformed Congregation, Tohickon Union Church, Bedminster Township, Bucks County
• Tohickon Lutheran Congregation, Tohickon Union Church, Bedminster Township, Bucks County

The records for churches 1 through 4 appeared in Volume 1 of the original bound book set, 5 through 8 were in Volume 2, and 9 through 13 were in Volume 3.

The copyrights for all three volumes of Pennsylvania German Church Records belong to the Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., of Baltimore, Maryland. The copyright date is 1983. If you wish to cite information found in one of this data set's volumes, we recommend using the following format:

Pennsylvania German Church Records. Volume number. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1983), page number. Reproduced on Genealogy.com's Online Data Set #130 (Pennsylvania German Church Records, 1729-1870).

Books Included in this Data Set

Pennsylvania German Church Records, Volumes 1-3