The William Wade Hinshaw Index to Quaker Meeting Records

THE WILLIAM WADE HINSHAW INDEX TO QUAKER MEETING RECORDS By Lyman W. Riley* THE NAME of William Wade Hinshaw (1867-1947), a Life Member of Friends Historical Association, is familiar to all who are interested in Quaker genealogy. The five volumes of his Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, an exhaustive abstract of the records of meetings in North Carolina, Philadelphia, New York City, Long Island, and Ohio, have proved themselves invaluable to genealogists and historians alike; the projected publication of a sixth volume dealing with Virginia meetings is eagerly awaited. There remained unpublished at the time of Mr. Hinshaw's death a mass of genealogical data copied under his direction from the record books of 197 Quaker meetings throughout the United States. In order that this material might be made available to the public, Mrs. William Wade Hinshaw presented it to the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, together with funds sufficient to have the material typed on cards and to purchase six large metal cabinets in which to house the cards. After two years of work this rather formidable project has been completed. The William Wade Hinshaw Index to Quaker Meeting Records comprises over 200,000 cards, each card containing the name of a person and an item of genealogical interest about that person. The cards are arranged by meetings and alphabetically by name within each meeting. In most cases a brief history of the meeting is included in the file. Births, deaths, marriages, disownments, and removals are the principal kinds of data recorded. Reference is made on each card to the volume and page of the original record from which the item was copied. Meetings included in the Index range from New Jersey to California. Pennsylvania meetings are Chester, Concord, Darby, Exeter, Frankford, Goshen, Gwynedd, Kennett, London Grove, New Garden, Philadelphia Northern District, Philadelphia * Assistant in the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. 37 38Bulletin of Friends Historical Association Southern District, and Stroudsburg. Meetings in New Jersey include Evesham, Haddonfield, Mt. Holly, and Woodbury. Eighty-four meetings in Iowa, 49 in Kansas, 12 in California, and 9 in Nebraska make up the bulk of the rest of the Index, together with a few other meetings in Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota , Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Quaker historians and biographers as well as genealogists will find this Index of great usefulness. In particular, the Hinshaw Index and Encyclopedia, covering, as they do, two great sections of the United States—the East and the Middle West— should throw much light on the yet-to-be-told story of Quaker migrations westward. Visitors to the Friends Historical Library are welcome to make use of the Index. Requests for information by mail, addressed to the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, will be turned over to competent genealogists, for whose services a charge of $1.25 per hour is made, with a minimum charge of $1.25 for each search. ...