Egle's Notes and Queries of Pennsylvania, 1700s-1800s

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About the Data

Originally published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, these books reference more than 109,000 individuals.

Comprising a total of twelve volumes, William Henry Egle's Notes and Queries is the most important multi-volume work on the genealogy, biography, and history of central Pennsylvania ever published. Included in its nearly 5000 pages are a vast number of genealogies, family sketches, and biographies, as well as extensive lists of early settlers and soldiers of the various wars, including the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. In addition, the work encompasses an impressive array of genealogical source records — early wills, church records, marriage and death records, tax lists, and lists of early immigrants and frontiersmen.

Notes and Queries was originally published between 1879 and 1895 as a series of newspaper columns in the Harrisburg Daily Telegraph, then carried forward and published in five annual volumes between 1896 and 1900. The columns (and offprints of the columns which appeared in pamphlet form) were reprinted in seven volumes between the years 1894 and 1896; thus, with the five annual volumes for 1896-1900, the complete set of Notes and Queries which appears on this CD totals twelve volumes.

William Henry Egle was the State Librarian of Pennsylvania for twelve years. In a Report of the State Librarian for the Year 1901, shortly after his death, his Notes and Queries was said to be "beyond all others the most important publication relating to the Scotch-Irish in America." And in the preface to the early reprint series it was noted that "no contributions to any newspaper in the country have been so appreciated or more often referred to."

Depending on the note or query, what you can learn about each listed individual varies. You can learn information not only on individuals and their families but the towns and locales in which they lived. You can learn facts such as birth and baptism dates (from, for example, church and family records) as well as more descriptive information (from, for example, personal correspondence and obituaries). Information in Egle's columns also came from tombstone inscriptions, family histories, marriage records, church records, tax records, and military records. With the great variety of information included in this data set, you will be able to gain a more complete understanding of your ancestors and their lives.