Delaware Societies

For genealogical and historical societies which have records and services to help you with your research, see Delaware Archives and Libraries.

Many Delaware towns and counties have historical societies or genealogical societies which offer services and collect records to help genealogists. You can find their addresses by using directories cited in United States Societies.

The Delaware Genealogical Society 505 Market Street Wilmington, DE 19801-3091

The Delaware Genealogical Society hold their meetings at the Delaware Historical Society on the third Tuesday of most months. Among their publications is The Delaware Genealogical Society Journal published semi-annually and the Delaware Genealogical Society Newsletter published five times a year. A Table of Contents for all volumes to the through April 2010 and a master index for mos volumes is available at the website.

A DGS committee is working to create a genealogical data for the families that lived in Delaware during its founding as a state 1787-1800.

Delaware Historical Society 505 Market Street Mall Wilmington, DE 19801-3091 Telephone: (302) 655-7161 Fax: (302) 655-7844 E-mail: [mailto:hsd@hsd.org hsd@hsd.org ]

Research Library Telephone: (302) 655-7061

Research Library Hours:


 * Mondays: 1:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
 * Tuesday and Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
 * Friday 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
 * Closed Wednedays and for major holidays.

The Society has collections of books, ephemera, newspapers, serials, maps, manuscripts and photographs relating to the history of Delaware and its people collected over 135 years. Their catalog is online.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania and Library 1300 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19107-5699 Phone: (215) 732-6200 Fax: (215) 732-2680

Library Hours:


 * Monday Closed
 * Tuesday 12:30-5:30 (last admittance at 4:45 p.m.)
 * Wednesday 12:30-8:30 (last admittance at 7:45 p.m.)
 * Thursday 12:30-5:30 (last admittance at 4:45 p.m.)
 * Friday 10:00-5:30 (last admittance at 4:45 p.m.)
 * Closed Saturdays and Sundays and major holidays.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is one of the nations largest family history libraries with an excellent collections on local and regional history, and a manuscript collection renowned for its 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century holdings. The Society merged their holdings with the Balch Institute’s in 2002 and the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania in 2006 through a Strategic Alliance Agreement, making it also one of the nation’s leading repositories of ethnic and immigrant studies materials. It houses some 600,000 books, pamphlets, serials, and microfilm reels; 20 million manuscripts; and over 300,000 graphics items, becoming one of the largest non-governmental repositories of documentary materials. There is an inline catalog to the Society's holdings.Ther are also manuscript and research guides, finding aids, indexes, and other tools for accessing their collection. Many are online.

The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania 2207 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19103-301 Phone: (215) 545-0391 Fax: (215) 545-0936

Library Hours:


 * Saturday – Monday: closed
 * Tuesday: 12:30 – 5:30
 * Wednesday: 12:30 – 8:30
 * Thursday: 12:30 – 5:30
 * Friday: 10:00 – 5:30.

The Genealogical Society publishes The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine twice a year.

University of Delaware Library 181 South College Avenue Newark, DE 19717-5267 Phone: (302) 831-2965

The main library is the Morris Library. It contains many books, periodicals, ebooks, ejournals, enewspapers, microforms, government publications, databases, maps, manuscripts, media, and Internet information of interest to genealogists. The University of Delaware Library is a depository library for U.S. government publications; a patent depository for U.S. patents; and a repository for State of Delaware publications.