U.S. and Canada, Quaker Monthly Meeting Historical Data, 1671-2010

This database contains historical information about the 2,100 Monthly Meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) which ever existed in North America. The extracted data is from the website: QuakerMeetings.com. Tom Hill maintains this website and has given permission for Ancestry.com to include his valuable work in its Quaker Collection.

What Is a Monthly Meeting?

A monthly meeting is both a congregation for worship and the basic unit of administration, which holds monthly business meetings. The monthly meeting has responsibility for recording membership information and is the body whose written minutes provide the most genealogical information. They oversee the care of their members, authorize marriages and removals, consider disciplinary actions, maintain property management, and deliberate over social concerns. Indulged and preparatory meeting all report up to monthly meetings. Monthly meetings report up to Quarterly Meetings, which in turn, report up to Yearly Meetings.

What You Can Find in the Records

This is an historical index where you can expect to find the following information:

• Common and former names of meetings
• Parent bodies – Quarterly and Yearly Meetings to which this meeting reports
• Current and former geographic locations
• Hicksite or Orthodox (or other) affiliation
• Books written about that meeting and other finding aids
• Meeting record storage locations
• Meeting records known to exist and film numbers (see sample entry below)

Here is an example of information about original meeting records for a monthly meeting: Where records are kept: SWARTHMORE mf HAVERFORD. LDS 338562

Read: Original records are stored at Swarthmore Friends Historical Library, microfilmed copies are at Haverford College Quaker Collection, and the Genealogy Society of Utah filmed some of the records, which can be ordered through a local Family History Center under film #338562.