Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Genealogy

United States Pennsylvania  Lehigh County

Parent County
6 March 1812: Lehigh County was created from Northampton County.

Neighboring Counties
Berks | Bucks | Carbon | Montgomery | Northampton | Schuylkill

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

The records of the Fountain Hill Cemetery, Fountain Hill, Bethlehem, PA have been digitally immaged. Records from 1872 to the present were recorded. The persons interred in the cemetery are mostly from the Bethlehem, PA area, especially those from the South side of Bethlehem and ethnic Slovenes who lived there.

The Genealogical Society of Utah created the images as part of project PENN0061D. They are not available to the public as of October 2009.

Church Records
The Lehigh County Pennsylvania Historical Society has a list of church records available in their collection. You can access these records by completing a search request form.

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.

Lutheran
Early records of the "Blue Church" have been published:


 * 1750-1764 - Beckel, Clarence E. "Records of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Congregation, Lehigh Co., Penna., 1750-1764," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 35 (1911):188-198. Includes marriages, deaths, and communicants. For free online access, see WeRelate.

Burials at Christ Church (united Lutheran and Reformed congregation) at Shoenersville have been published:


 * 1780-1880 - Centennial of Christ Church at Shoenersville, Pa. 1880. Digital version at Ancestry ($).

A register of burials for St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church survives:


 * 1861-1874 - St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church Records - birth, death, burial 1786-1874 at The USGenWeb Project - free.

Moravian
Moravians established a settlement at Bethlehem in 1741. The Bethlehem Digital History Project (winner of a National Endowments for the Humanities prize) includes community records, Bethlehem diary, bills of sale and manumissions, business activity, meeting minutes, Moravian Indian diaries 1763-1765, registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, and church regulations.


 * 1740s-1790s - Moravian Church, Bethlehem Marriages at The USGenWeb Project - free.

There was also a Moravian congregation at Emmaus:


 * 1758-1800 - Moravian Church Marriage Records, Emmaus, Pa. 1758-1800 at The USGenWeb Project - free.

Reformed

 * 1765-1846 - Records of Schlosser's or Union Reformed Church, Unionville, North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1765-1846 at The USGenWeb Project - free.

Land and Property
Land records in Lehigh County began in 1812. These records are filed with the Recorder of Deeds office in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts, indexes, mortgages, leases, grants, sheriff sales, land patents, and maps. Property records include liens as well as livestock brands and estray records.

The following are examples of available resources:

Online Land Records


 * 1984–present Images are available online using the Landex system. There is a fee to view the images.

Land Records on Microfilm


 * 1812–1911 Deed Records 1812-1901; Index 1812-1911
 * 1812–1911 Mortgage Records, 1812-1886; Mortgage Index 1812-1911.

Additional Resources

Note that the "Maps" section below also includes maps related to land ownership.

See Pennsylvania Land and Property for more information about using land records, especially about original land warrants, surveys, and patents filed at the state land office.

Additional resources can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Lehigh County Pennsylvania Land in online catalogs such as:


 * Historical Society of Pennsylvania
 * WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog.)
 * (For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search.)

Maps
Ancestor Tracks has posted free downloadable images from the 1876 Illustrated Atlas of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. This atlas located in the Library of Congress shows major landowners and geographic sites at the date of publishing. While the physical maps are in the public domain, the images we have taken of the maps belong to us and are not be used commercially. We hereby give permission to use them strictly for personal use; please attribute to Ancestor Tracks.

Migration
Early migration routes to and from Lehigh County, Pennsylvania for settlers included:


 * Delaware River a pre-historic patthway serving as the border between New Jersey and Pennsylvania rises in Schoharie County, New York and flows by the Lehigh Canal in Pennsylvania, Frenchtown, Trenton where river meets tidewater, and past Bordentown in New Jersey, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania to empty into the North Atlantic Ocean.
 * Delaware and Raritan Canal 1834 connected New Brunswick, New Jersey on the Raritan River (and NY City) to Bordontown, New Jersey on the Delaware River. Lehigh County, Pennsylvania connected via the feeder canal at Frenchtown, New Jersey.

Family History Centers

 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers
 * Allentown Pennsylvania Family History Center (Whitehall)

Museums
Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum 432 W. Walnut Street Allentown, PA 18102 Phone: (610) 435-1074

Birth

 * 1852-1854 – Pennsylvania Births Ancestry.com – ($) Index with images.
 * 1709-1950

Marriage

 * 1709-1940

Death

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

Web Sites

 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.