Ancestry.com has published an index to more than 14,800 family history folders and Bible records in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s collections, the latest step in an ongoing partnership to make HSP’s collections more accessible to researchers.
The descriptions of these family history folders and Bible records are not new – you’ve probably already encountered them in HSP’s online catalog, Discover.hsp.org. But now, Ancestry.com users who may not be familiar with HSP’s incredible genealogical and historical collections can find these family history folders more easily.
These files may include a single page of notes, or may include dozens of pages of research notes, photocopies, newspaper clippings, correspondence, or other documents. The Bible record files can provide an irreplaceable glimpse into long-lost family Bibles and the births, deaths, and marriages recorded there.
This is just one of the HSP-related databases now available on Ancestry.com. Since we began our partnership in 2012, Ancestry.com has digitized more than 7.5 million Pennsylvania vital records from HSP’s collection, including church, cemetery, and undertaker records from every county in the state from 1708 through 1985. Ancestry.com also hosts extensive HSP indexes to the records of Philadelphia’s Oliver H. Bair Company funeral home and information about Pennsylvania Revolutionary War battalions and militias. Next up: the genealogy web site plans to host an index of HSP’s county ledgers and genealogical scrapbooks.
All of these records are available online for free for members of HSP (via our web site), to visitors to HSP’s library at 1300 Locust Street in Philadelphia, and to Ancestry.com subscribers.