Research & Archives

The Crawford County Historical Society’s archive contains an extensive and diverse array of resources to help families, students, academics, companies, and local history enthusiasts. In addition to microfilm readers, the Society also offers two laptops outfitted with library editions of Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com for patrons to utilize while working at the archive. These tools combined with the archival resources listed below can aid in a rewarding search experience. If you would like to take advantage of these resources, please consult our Research Request page for guidelines on visiting the archive and processing research requests. Please review these guidelines carefully as fees and restrictions may apply. Please also ensure to verify our hours before making a trip to the archive.

Census Records

Census records are available through Ancestry.com. The library edition of Ancestry.com is available for patrons to utilize at the archive at no additional charge.

In addition, the archive also holds microfilm copies of the mortality, agricultural, and industrial schedules which were taken in conjunction with standard census from 1850 to 1880 by county for the entire state. The mortality schedules provide significant information about deaths in the county during a time period when deaths were not officially recorded anywhere else. The agricultural schedules contain information about the farms throughout the county, with columns for the amount of cultivated and uncultivated land; the number of cows, pigs, sheep, and other livestock; what crops were raised on the land, such as “Indian corn,” “Irish potatoes,” wheat, rye, buckwheat, etc.; and how much butter was produced along with maple syrup, beeswax, etc. The industrial schedules give inventories of supplies and products on hand, along with the monetary value. These schedules are an interesting way to find out more about your ancestors’ way of life.

Directories

The archive holds a variety of city and county directories along with telephone directories. Those for Meadville began in 1868/69, Titusville a bit later, and the county directories in 1872. These can be helpful in locating families and sometimes in determining when homes were built.

Newspapers

Crawford County has been blessed with a large number of newspapers over the past 200+ years, both dailies and weeklies. The earliest one, the Crawford Weekly Messenger, dates from 1805 is considered the second-oldest newspaper to be published in Western Pennsylvania.

Some of the papers provided strictly local news, others focused on national news with a definite political slant. It was not hard to determine the bias of the Crawford Democrat, the Democrat Whig Journal, or the Evening Republican, to name a few. With a few small exceptions, these papers are available at the archive on microfilm. Those visiting the archive may also use the CCHS’s Newspapers.com account to research newspapers not already included on microfilm.

The newspapers cover a large part of the county at various periods of time and are as geographically diverse as the Titusville Herald, Conneautville Courier, Cochranton Scroll, Meadville Morning Star, Linesville Herald, and Sparta Sentinel. To review the full index of the newspapers in our archive click here for a PDF version.

In addition, all of the obituaries, death and marriage announcements, and some birth announcements found in these newspapers have been indexed, card-file fashion, and are available for perusal. As Pennsylvania did not require the keeping of official birth and death records until 1906, and marriage licenses were not mandated until 1885, these newspapers can be invaluable.

Court Records

As the designated county historical society, our archive houses some original county records. Tax rolls date from 1800 when the county was first established. Then, as now, the governing bodies found ways to tax many aspects of life. In addition to the expected taxes on property, land and buildings, there were taxes on some occupations and trades. A person would pay additional taxes if he owned a sawmill or a distillery for example. If he were a carpenter, wheelwright or gunsmith, he paid a small tax. At various times, there was also a tax for owning a dog and for being a single man. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, tax rolls often included a list of the men in the county subject to, or at least eligible for, service in the local militia. The very earliest ledgers include tax rolls from the surrounding counties in addition to Crawford County.

Also, the Crawford County Courthouse is two buildings away from the archive. Researchers might want to consider allotting time to visit there when coming to the archive. Records date from 1800 and include wills and other probate records, deeds, mortgages, divorces, adoptions, assessments, and naturalizations, among others. Please contact the Crawford County Courthouse in advance to coordinate your visit

Cemeteries

Crawford County has over 330 known cemeteries, most of which have been indexed by volunteers at various times over the past 50 years. These indices are available in notebooks, township by township. Since many of the smaller cemeteries have fallen into a state of disrepair and a few have disappeared almost completely, these recordings of tombstones are sometimes the only trace of early burials.

In 2008, GPS coordinates for all of the county cemeteries were recorded to make it easier for researchers to pinpoint their exact locations. A copy of these coordinates can be obtained by making a research request. Online resources, such as the Find A Grave website and phone app can be handy tools as well.

Maps

Early maps of the county, beginning in 1839, are available for research. An 1865 county map includes dwellings, churches, and cemeteries. The 1876 county atlas covers the county, township by township. There is the original plan of the town of Meadville," and the 1869 map of Meadville, and the detailed Sanborn maps of Meadville, from 1886 through 1932 in roughly five-year intervals. Other resources include railroad maps, various other counties, and city maps, along with birds-eye views of Titusville and Meadville in the 1870s.

Manuscript Collection

The Society holds an impressive collection of 19th and 20th-century manuscripts, including the Fort Franklin ledgers and the Holland Land Company ledgers, documenting purchases of the very first settlers; daybooks, and account ledgers of local merchants and tradesmen throughout the county; doctors' account books; bible records; and miscellaneous family documents which have been donated.

Most of these records are available for research, although there may be some restrictions based on the fragile condition of the records. These items should be requested in advance if possible to allow for time to have stall pull resources.

Prominent Family Collections

The archive maintains many materials and documents written by or pertaining to the county’s influential families including the Huidekoper papers, the Bates family collection to name a few. Many of these families were connected to important people and historical events on a national, and even international level including correspondence with several of our country’s early presidents. The first-source materials in these collections contain details academic researchers may find significant.

Like the manuscripts, restrictions do apply given the age of these resources, and they may only be viewed by visiting the archive. Please contact the archive in advance to coordinate your research using these materials.

Genealogical Resources

The archive has many open stacks of published family histories along with volumes containing county histories, with a special focus on Crawford and neighboring counties.

Also included are a variety of published accounts of Titusville and the oil region and church histories. Among the many works by local authors are Crawford County Naturalizations, 1800-1906 and African-American Heritage: People of Color in Crawford County, 1797-1917. Numerous immigration records include Mayflower Families, Irish Famine Immigrants, and New England Families listed in the New England Genealogical Society Journals.

The archive also holds the journals of the Crawford County Genealogical Society from 1978-2005. These journals contain the research of its contributors, family records and histories, bible records, miscellaneous cemetery transcriptions, and other materials which supplement the resources of the archive and are not readily available elsewhere. Our yearbook collection from various area schools can also aid in your family research.

Those visiting the archive are allowed to conduct research on Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com using the CCHS’s account.

Military Records

The Society maintains card file indexes of county men and women who have served in the military from the Revolutionary War through modem conflicts. Civil War records are featured, with many valuable regimental histories available upon request. Volumes of military histories are housed in our collections, including local historian Samuel P. Bates' Civil War History and the Pennsylvania Regimental History.

Crawford County Grange Records

While city directories, city records, and newspapers exist and can be helpful resources for those looking up their ancestors, many local history collections are not as useful to those researching the majority of Crawford County’s rural and agricultural past. The Society recently became the repository of an exhaustive collection of Grange records from individual Granges throughout the county. These provide minutes, membership lists, and other information that can often connect someone living in a smaller community to the area when other sources may not have coverage.

Photo Collection

The archive has several notable photo collections, broken into categories of persons, places, and events numbering in the tens of thousands. Special collections include that of both Kurt Glaubach and McCaskey, local photographers with Photographic Arts studio, dating from the mid-to-late 19th century.

Corporate Histories

As the birthplace of the oil industry and home to such recognized brands as Talon and Channellock, the archive has much to offer. Those searching for details concerning the history of various industries and businesses can review several resources aside from business directories from across the county. The archive contains many original railroad employment records and various legal documents such as the liquor licenses for establishments dating back to our earliest days. We have several anthologies from different eras highlighting the area’s industrial strength during those periods, and even an extensive history of all things automotive in Crawford County.

Society Newsletters and Local Research

The archive contains the work of many local scholars and history enthusiasts who have contributed their writings and research findings to the benefit of the society. Among these works are Dr. Paul Poux’s history of the Frenchtown settlement, John Reynolds’s In French Creek Valley, and Place Names of Crawford County compiled by Frederick Seely and Jonathan Helmreich as well as the histories of various towns and boroughs captured by local residents. The many works of historian Robert D. Ilisvich are also available, and there are a wealth of contributions published on our blog, the Crawford Messenger as well as in issues of the Crawford County Historical Society’s newsletters dating back to 1973. You can consult the CCHS newsletter library and topic index for details. (Please note, this is only an index to help facilitate research as the majority of our past newsletters are not digitized.)

Artifacts

The Society holds a collection of thousands of three-dimensional artifacts that connect us to our past, including housewares, furniture, artwork, tools, manufacturing items, and even several horse-drawn vehicles. Many of these artifacts are on display at the Society’s house Museum (Mount Hope: The Baldwin-Reynolds House Museum) as well as our agricultural museum at the Crawford County Fair, the Mosier Medical Museum, and on loan to other institutions regionally. If you would like to see an artifact in particular for research purposes, please contact us.

Accessing Archive Resources

Some of the above materials can be accessed digitally. Please consult our listing of online materials below for a directory of these and other resources.

If you would like to take advantage of these resources, please consult our Research Request page for guidelines on visiting the archive and processing research requests. Please review these guidelines carefully as fees and restrictions may apply. Please also ensure to verify our hours before making a trip to the archive.