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HINSHAW'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF QUAKER GENEALOGY 5 HINSHAWS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF QUAKER GENEALOGY THE FIRST volume of Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, covering the thirty-three oldest meetings of North Carolina, appeared in 1936. The second volume, covering four Philadelphia monthly meetings (Salem, Burlington, Philadelphia, and Falls), appeared in 1938. And just as the Bulletin is going to press, the third volume appears, covering "all meetings of all grades ever organized in New York City and on Long Island"—a somewhat smaller volume than its predecessors, containing however some 540 pages. The grateful historian, genealogist, editor is moved anew to humble admiration of the scope of the original plan of this Encyclopedia and of the exhaustive thoroughness with which it is being carried out; and to hope that Wade Hinshaw may be spared to carry the task to completion. The present volume, though it dra\vs on the records of four monthly meetings, covers some twenty-three meetings, since the records of all were kept by New York, Westbury, Jericho, or Flushing. But the book is more complete than even the Quaker minutes could have made it ; for the editors have consulted old family Bibles, burial registers, tombstone records from Quaker and non-Quaker burial grounds, and genealogical works already published. There were special difficulties in checking and reconciling the dates, due to the change from Old Style to New Style calendar; for under the Old Style the year was thought of as beginning in March, and Friends referred to March as First month, and uninformed historians have translated a Quaker record of "First month" back to "January" of the world's people. Indeed, with full awareness of the change, it is often impossible to tell which style was intended in the designation of a given month by a number, and confirmatory evidence must be sought. One of the great values of such a universal dragnet is that many isolated problems of history or genealogy here find their solution in the mere inconspicuous recording in a single indexed volume of routine entries from all the original minutes from an entire region. For the scholar uncertain which of two or three persons with identical names may be referred to in a critical source passage, or not knowing when a certain personage lived, 6 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION it has been impossible to make the huge search that would perhaps bring the information to light—no single problem of this kind is important enough to justify the effort and expense. But now, all at once, the answers to a multitude of such problems, which have troubled a multitude of workers in the past, are ready at hand. An illegible personal name in an old MS Quaker letter can be deciphered by the use of the index and the references in the text ; a person known to have lived in a given place at a given time, but later lost from sight, can be followed by the record of his certificate of removal. In fact, the same advantages accruing to users of the preceding volumes are now available for an additional and very important area. Friends' Historical Association is vitally interested in the progress of Wade Hinshaw's monumental work, and bespeaks the loyal support of all those interested in making our Quaker records available and preserving them for future workers. PENNSBURY MANOR TTTILLIAM PENN'S country residence, begun in 1683, fell * * into complete decay upon the withdrawal of his family from the colony. But in 1932 the Warner Company, which then owned the land, presented about ten acres to the State ; and since then there has been ceaseless activity not only to mark the site of the "William Penn Farm" but to restore the building itself. This restoration involved laborious archaeological research, in order that the restoration might be as faithful as humanly possible. About $237,000 of public money was made available; and in April 1938 the actual construction began. In the fall of 1939 the main building and adjacent buildings were completed. The task of furnishing the interior as a historical museum, and of grading and planting according to Penn's plans, still remains to be done; but...

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