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Published Pennsylvania Archives

For purposes of quick reference as to the individual series, the following brief summaries, covering the ten series each in turn, in the order of their publication, may at times prove helpful.

Note: For your convenience, digitized images of the pages in the Published Pennsylvania Archives series are currently available online through another organization, Fold3 (formerly footnote.com). If you have any technical difficulty in bringing up the desired pages on fold3.com, please refer your questions to Fold3 directly using their contact links. The State Archives has no direct involvement in their website. Digitized images are also available through Ancestry.com and Hathitrust.org.

  1. Colonial Records: A total of sixteen volumes containing the minutes of the Provincial Council, 1683-1775, in Volumes I-X; those of the Council of Safety (and of the Committee of Safety), 1775-1777, in X and XI; and those of the Supreme Executive Council, 1777-1790, in XI-XVI. These were printed directly from the manuscript books with no editing apparent Issued 1838-1853.
  2. Pennsylvania Archives, later to be known as the First Series: These twelve volumes reproduce papers selected chiefly from the files at the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, printed in chronological order to parallel and supplement Colonial Records. The earliest materials are dated 1664 and the latest 1790. Well edited by Samuel Hazard and issued 1852-1856.
  3. Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series: In its nineteen volumes this series, contains varied and diverse materials; militia rolls and church records are prominent, but there are as well the minutes of the Board of War and those of the Navy Board, both of 1777, and much on the Wyoming Controversy with Connecticut and on the Whiskey Insurrection. Edited by John B. Linn and Dr. William Henry Egle through Volume XII, and by Dr. Egle alone for the remainder of the series. Issued 1874-1890.
  4. Pennsylvania Archives, Third Series: The first twenty-six volumes of this series resemble closely those of the Second Series, while the last four volumes consist of an index to the sixteen volumes immediately preceding. Filled for the most part with militia rolls and lists of land warrantees and taxables, this series does contain some materials of a more general nature, such as a discussion of Virginia's claims to western Pennsylvania, and an account of the Donation Lands. Edited by Dr. Egle (I-XXVI) with four index volumes edited by Dr. George Edward Reed. Issued 1894-1899.
  5. Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series: In twelve volumes, this series collects the addresses, messages, proclamations, and a very few other Papers of Pennsylvania's Governors, 1681-1902, with brief biographies and portraits but with a minimum of documentation. Edited by Dr. George Edward Reed and issued 1900-1902.
  6. Pennsylvania Archives, Fifth Series: This series fills eight volumes with muster rolls and other military lists, chiefly of the provincial and revolutionary period, some reprinted with greater accuracy and neatness from the Second and Third Series, and certain of the others taken from sources outside official custody. Edited by Dr. Thomas Lynch Montgomery and issued in 1906.
  7. Pennsylvania Archives, Sixth Series: For fourteen volumes this series continues the printing of military rolls, covering chiefly the period from the Revolution to the War of 1812, including militia rolls for the years of peace, with some material as late as the Mexican War. There are also a few orderly books, military accounts for the 1812 period, and some papers non-military in nature, notable church records of marriages and baptisms, inventories of estates confiscated during the Revolution, and scattering eighteenth century election returns. The final volume, XV, bound in two thick parts, contains an index to the Fifth Series. Edited by Dr. Thomas Lynch Montgomery and issued 1906-1907.
  8. Pennsylvania Archives, Seventh Series: The five volumes of this series consist exclusively of an index to the more than one million names found in the first fourteen volumes of the Sixth Series. The Seventh Series was intended to include in additional volumes the Executive Minutes which later were published as the Ninth Series, but publication halted with the death of L.R. Kelker, Custodian of Public Records, in 1915. Compiled by Kelker and his assistants in the Division of Public Records under the direction of Dr. Thomas Lynch Montgomery and issued in 1914.
  9. Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series: In eight volumes, this series reprints the eighteenth- century edition of Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1682-1776. The first five volumes bear the name of Gertrude MacKinney as editor, and the last three the name of Dr. Charles F. Hoban. Issued 1913-1935.
  10. Pennsylvania Archives, Ninth Series: In ten volumes, this series prints the contents of fifteen manuscript volumes preserved in the Division of Public Records. These are Executive Minutes, a journal of official actions of Pennsylvania's Governors for the period 1790-1838. This series continues Colonial Records and supplements the Fourth Series for the effective period of the Constitution of 1790. Bears the name of Gertrude MacKinney as editor. Issued 1931-1935.