Are there Quakers in your family tree? Learn about free Quaker genealogy resources online in this post.

But before we dive into congreation records, let’s start out with a brief explanation of Quakerism from belief.net.

Who are the Quakers?

The Religious Society of Friends is the name of the group commonly known as Quakers. Friends are a Christian group who believe in the presence of God within each person, often referred to as the “Inner Light.”

Quakers emphasize a personal commitment to God and humanitarian causes. The Religious Society of Friends was founded in the mid-17th century in England by George Fox (1624-1691). The Society of Friends is commonly known as Quakers because the original Friends were mocked for “trembling with religious zeal.”

Read more about Quaker beliefs here.

Quaker Resources

Begin with the Quaker Information Center at the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. Their site features information on Quakerism, a resource list of printed publications, and information on major Quaker collections of U.S. archives.

And here are some of the major collections of the records of U.S. Friends meetings. Please review the web pages for these collections before making inquiries to these archives:

  • Most archives of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and Baltimore Yearly Meeting located at one or both of the two libraries listed below.
  • The records of New York Yearly Meeting located in the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. Friends Historical Library Swarthmore College Phone: 610-328-8496 Email: [email protected] (See the link for “genealogy.”)

So those are some of the free Quaker genealogy resources online for your family history research. Let me know what you find.