William Henry Egle’s Notes and Queries Historical, Biographical, and Genealogical Relating Chiefly to Interior Pennsylvania is the most important multi-volume work on the genealogy, biography, and history of central Pennsylvania. Included in its richly informative pages are genealogies, biographies, and family sketches, as well as lists of early settlers and soldiers of the various wars. In addition, the work encompasses a vast number of church records, wills, and marriage, death, and tax lists.

The small book at hand, which is based upon the master manuscript index to Notes and Queries at the Pennsylvania State Library, contains about 4,000 entries, many with multiple references, the majority being references to families or individuals. While it does not, of course, contain all the names in Egle’s opus (which was originally published as a regular feature in the Harrisburg Daily Telegraph), it is nonetheless a critical finding aid for persons with central Pennsylvania ancestry.