Originally published in 1987, Our Quaker Ancestors: Finding Them in Quaker Records, by Ellen and Thomas Berry, has served as the standard guidebook for persons with Quaker ancestors. Our Quaker Ancestors provides a comprehensive introduction to the rich yet sometimes confusing body of records, repositories, and publications devoted to the Society of Friends. We are[…]Read more
Virtually no other 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[…]Read more
The Midwest Book Review, a longstanding source for acquisition librarians responsible for adding to their collections, recently endorsed the Second Edition of Ellen and David Berry’s guidebook, Our Quaker Ancestors. Finding Them in Quaker Records. The review, which appeared in the August 2022 issue of “The Bookwatch” follows below: “The second updated edition of Our[…]Read more
The following article is excerpted from the Introduction to Ellen and David Berry’s book, Our Quaker Ancestors. For more information about that publication, please CLICK HERE. The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, has a rich storehouse of records kept from its beginning in the mid-1600s to the present. There are vast differences among Quaker[…]Read more
Many persons living today have Quaker ancestors—even though these descendants are not themselves members of the Society of Friends. Quaker records are voluminous, but, owing to the structure and concerns of the Society, they require prior explanation. And this is precisely what Our Quaker Ancestors: Finding Them in Quaker Records, by the late Ellen and[…]Read more
