Beaver County, Pennsylvania Genealogy

United States Pennsylvania Beaver County

Historical Facts

 * Parent Counties: Formed from Allegheny, Lycoming and Washington Counties 12 March 1800.
 * County Seat: Beaver
 * Neighboring Counties: residents may also have records in Lawrence (north) • Butler (east) • Columbiana County, Ohio and Hancock County, West Virginia (west) • Washington (south)  • and Allegheny (southeast)

==== Boundary Changes ====


 * 1780: Future southern 1/3 of Beaver County was disputed between Virginia and Pennsylvania until Mason-Dixon Line was finalized.
 * 1785: Future northern 2/3 was not included in any county until 1785.
 * 27 January 1750: Future southern 1/3 was incorporated into Cumberland County when it was formed.
 * 9 March 1771: Future southern 1/3 became part of Bedford County when it was erected.
 * 26 February 1773: Future southern 1/3 became part of Westmoreland County when it was formed.
 * 28 March 1781: Future southern 1/3 became part of Washington County when it was formed.
 * 1783: Future northern 2/3 was designated as Depreciation Lands for Revolutionary War soldiers.
 * 1785: Future northern 2/3 was annexed to Northumberland County.
 * 24 September 1788: Nearly all of Beaver fell into Allegheny County when it was created. a small southern portion remained in Washington County.
 * 20 March 1849: Lawrence County was created, giving Beaver County its current boundaries.

Cemeteries
Cemetery records often reveal birth, death, relationship, military, and religious information.

County-wide Database - Multi-denominational

 * 1708-1985 - Pennsylvania, Church and Town Records, 1708-1985 at Historical Society of Pennsylvania – $, free to members of the society; Also available at Ancestry.com – $; 7,542,774 entries. This database is incomplete for all counties.

Catholic

 * "100 years of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese 1843–1943". Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society Quarterly, 17:1. FamilySearch Library book 974.8 B2wg. Contains chronolgy, map, county-by-county information.

Prothonotary
Prothonotary Office

Land
Deeds for Beaver County are availabe on-linefrom 1957 to the present and mortgages from July 1974 to the present. Images are available from 1 January 1974 to present.


 * Deeds, 1800-1887; Deed Indexes, 1800-1918

Maps

 * Ancestor Tracks has posted free, downloadable images of the township maps showing landowners from Map of Lawrence and Beaver Counties from Actual Surveys by N.S. Ames which was published in 1860. While the physical maps are in the public domain, the images we have taken of the maps belong to us and are not to be used to commercially. We hereby give permission to use them strictly for personal use; please attribute to Ancestor Tracks.

Revolutionary War
Men living in what is now Beaver County (then Washington and Westmoreland counties) served in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment.

Newspapers
There are two books by Mark H Welchley, that when used together, provide abstracts from the Beaver County Argus newspaper from 1830 - 1858. Argus Genealogical Gleanings covers 1830-1838 (FHL US/CAN Book 974.892 V28w). Beaver County, Pennsylvania Marriages from Beaver County Newspapers (FHL US/CAN Book 974.892 V2w) covers 1830-1878. Note that the content of these books do not overlap, despite the overlapping of the dates.

Available Online


 * Beaver County Times - full-text of more than 11,000 issues spanning 1954-2007 freely available on Goolge Newspaper Archive.
 * Beaver Falls Tribune - more than 2,700 full-text issues spanning 1912-1928 freely available on Google Newspaper Archive
 * Beaver Times - full-text of close to 800 digital issues spanning 1900-1906 freely available on Google Newspaper Archive
 * Beaver Valley Times - full-text of more than 2,500 issues spanning 1946-1960 freely available on Google Newspaper Archive

Courthouse
Beaver County Courthouse 810 Third Street Beaver, PA 15009 Phone:(724) 728-5700

Family History Centers

 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers
 * Beaver Valley Pennsylvania Family History Center (Monaca)

Societies

 * Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society
 * Beaver County Genealogy History Center

Births

 * 1852-1854 – Pennsylvania Births Ancestry.com – ($) Index with images.

Divorce
Divorce records are available through the office of the Prothonotary. Since there is no on-line index, you can search the index at the the Prothonotary' office. The office of the Prothonotary is located at: Beaver County Court House 810 Third Street Beaver, PA 15009 Phone: (724) 770-4570 Fax: (724) 728-3360 Email: nwerme@beavercountypa.gov

Deaths

 * 1852-1854 – Pennsylvania Births Ancestry.com – ($) Index with images.
 * 1852-1854, 1893-1906 – Helen G Clear. Registration of Deaths, Beaver County, Pennsylvania (New Brighton, Pennsylvania: H. G. Clear, c 1984).
 * 1893–1907 – Registration of Death, 2 volumes

Web Sites

 * Linkpendium - Beaver County
 * Beaver County PAGenWeb site
 * Beaver County PA Old Photos