Gloucester County, New Jersey Genealogy

Gloucester County, New Jersey ancestry, family history, and genealogy research page. Guide to genealogy, history, and courthouse sources including birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, wills, deeds and land records, Civil War records, Revolutionary War records, family histories, cemeteries, churches, tax records, newspapers, and obituaries.

Description
Gloucester County is located south of Philadelphia and northwest of Atlantic City. It was created in 1686. Woodbury is the county seat. The county was named for the city of Gloucester, England.

Gloucester County, New Jersey Historical Facts
1642-1643: The New Sweden Colony expanded from present-day Wilmington, Delaware east to New Jersey at New Stockholm, now Bridgeport, Gloucester, New Jersey, and Sveaborg, now Swedesboro, Gloucester, New Jersey.

1654-1655: In 1654 New Sweden captured Fort Casimir (now New Castle, Delaware) from the Dutch without a fight and renamed Fort Trinty (Trefaldighets). In 1655 New Netherland returned with a large army and all of New Sweden in presend-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware submitted to Dutch rule.

1664: As part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War New Netherland including West Jersey was surrendered to the English.

1673-1674: A new war broke out and the Dutch sent a large armada to retake New Netherland for a few months. But as the war ended the colony was ceeded to England for the last time.

Created 28 May 1686 from the Colonial Lands.

Boundary Changes

 * 1686, courts separated from Burlington County
 * 1692, boundary set with Burlington county and repealed in 1693
 * 1694, formed in West Jersey with Egg Harbor from Cape May County
 * 1710, boundaries redefined
 * 1837, part forms Atlantic County
 * 1844, part made into Camden County
 * 1871, Monroe twp. and bulk of Washington twp. from Camden County
 * 1892, part of Landis twps., Cumberland County taken and returned in 1897
 * 1926, part of Washington twp. to Camden County with some more going in 1931
 * 1938, boundary clarified with Atlantic County
 * 1950, some to Camden County.

For animated maps illustrating New Jersey county boundary changes, visit "Rotating Formation New Jersey County Boundary Maps" (1683-1928) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Record Loss
1786 The courthouse was destroyed by fire.

Census

 * 1855 at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1865 at FamilySearch — images
 * 1895 at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1915 at FamilySearch — index and images

Church Records

 * 1675-1970 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 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.
 * Contains the church records of:
 * Gloucester: Church of the Ascension; First Presbyterian Church
 * Monroe: Methodist Church
 * Woodbury: United Methodist Church
 * Woolwich: Trinity Episcopal Church

Episcopal

 * 1787-1815 - Stevenson, J.R. "Records of St. Mary's Church, Colestown, (Old Gloucester Co.) New Jersey," Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jun. 1908):237-240. For free online access, see WeRelate; the Family History Library also has this series in its collection: . Baptisms 1787-1815, marriages 1795-1796, burials 1794-1795.

Lutheran
Raccoon Parish was the first Swedish Church built in New Jersey (1703).

1754 and 1786 membership lists of Raccoon Parish are preserved in Archivum Americanum at the Consistory Court of the Archbishop of Upsal in Sweden. A copy of the 1754 list is held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Emigration and Immigration

 * Clement, John. "Swedish Settlers in Gloucester County, New Jersey, Previous to 1684," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 17 (1893):83-87. For free online access, see WeRelate.

Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups
African American

Gloucester County Series, Slave Documents. prepared by Gloucester County Historical Project; edited and published by the New Jersey Historical Records Survey Project, Division of Professional and Service Projects, Works Projects Administration; sponsored by New Jersey State Planning Board. - Newark, N.J. : Historical Records Survey, 1940.- xii, 66 leaves, 9transcriptions of early county records of New Jersey) F142.G5 H5 1940

Gazetteers

 * United States Geographic Survey Place Names - GNIS for Gloucester County (may not always be present in alphabetic order on first try.)

Naturalization and Citizenship

 * 1796-1991 - at FamilySearch — index

Obtaining Copies of County Probate Records
Copies of recorded probate records and the estate files can be obtained from the surrogate's offices for a fee. Addresses of surrogate's offices are found in:


 * Eichholz, Alice, Editor. Ancestry's Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. Revised Edition. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, 1992. (.) Explains state-by-state history, vital records, census, background sources, periodicals, archives, libraries, societies, maps, land, probate, court, tax, cemetery, church, and military records. Includes county boundary map and table which shows when each county was created and the parent counties.

In addition, copies of the original wills, administrations, inventories, and guardianships sent to Trenton since 1901 can be ordered from:

Clerk of the Superior Court Records Information Center P.O. Box 967 Trenton, NJ 08625-0967 Phone: (609) 292-4978 Fax: (609) 777-0094

Online Probate Records
 * 1656 - 1999 New Jersey Wills and Probate Records 1656-1999 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1670 – 1760 Calendar of New Jersey Wills 1670-1760 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1670 – 1817 New Jersey Abstract of Wills 1670-1817 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1678 - 1980 at FamilySearch — images

Courthouse
Gloucester County Courthouse 1 N Broad Street Woodbury, NJ 08096-4611 Phone: (856) 853-3237 County Clerk has court and land records from 1787. Surrogate Court has probate records. Clerk Superior Court has divorce records. Early records preserved at Surveyor General’s Office, Burlington Sec. of State Office, Trenton.

"Close To Everything, Far From It All"

Family History Centers

 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers

Societies
Gloucester County Historical Society 17 Hunter Street PO Box 409 Woodbury, NJ 08096-0409 Website

Birth

 * 1901-1903, at FamilySearch — index

Marriage
Online Marriage Indexes and Records

1606-1981 - New Jersey, United States Marriages at FindMyPast — index $


 * 1930-1938 - at FamilySearch — index

Gloucester County, New Jersey Websites

 * FamilySearch Catalog for Gloucester County
 * Gloucester County, New Jersey History, Records, Facts and Genealogy (Familytree101)
 * The Gloucester County NJGenWeb Project, an member of The NJGenWeb Project, an affiliate of The USGenWeb Project.
 * Gloucester County, New Jersey History &amp; Genealogy (an independent site)
 * Gloucester County NJ Genealogy

Gloucester County, New Jersey Neighboring Counties



 * Atlantic
 * Bergen
 * Burlington
 * Camden
 * New Castle, Delaware
 * Delaware, Pennsylvania
 * Philadelphia, Pennsylvania