Source Information

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Compiled Marriage Records, 1700-1821 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011.
Original data: Pennsylvania Marriage Records. Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Archives Printed Series, 1876. Series 2, Series 6.

About Pennsylvania, U.S., Compiled Marriage Records, 1700-1821

This database contains marriage records from four volumes of the Pennsylvania Archives.

About the Records

The Pennsylvania Archives is a collection of early Pennsylvania records selected, transcribed, and published in 138 volumes. The books were compiled and published over the course of almost 100 years in 10 groups, or series, and contain military, tax, marriage, naturalization, and land records, as well as diaries, government correspondence, election returns, and many other documents from Pennsylvania and American history.

This database contains marriage information from volumes 2, 8, and 9 from the Second Series and volume 6 from the Sixth Series. The marriages recorded date prior to 1810 and include details extracted from both civil and church records. Some collections are statewide, while others are confined to a specific county, city, or congregation.

Licenses were issued by the Provincial Secretary’s office in Pennsylvania’s early days in an effort to prevent clandestine marriages, though the licenses were not initially required for a couple to marry. The date on early licenses is the license date rather than the marriage date. Church records extracted include Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, Moravian, and Quaker Monthly Meeting records, among others.

Note that this database includes extracted information rather than images of actual licenses or registers.