Perry County, Pennsylvania Genealogy

United States Pennsylvania  Perry County

History

 * Named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.
 * One of reasons the county was created because residents did not want to travel over the mountains to get to Carlisle which was the seat of Cumberland County.

Parent County
22 March 1820: Perry County was created 22 March 1820 from Cumberland County.

Populated Places
Perry county has two types of municipalities, boroughs and twonships. It has 9 boroughs: Blain, Duncannon, Landisburg, Liverpool, Marysville, Millerstown, Bloomfield, New Buffalo, and Newport; and 21 townships: Buffalo Township, Carroll Township, Centre Township, Greenwood Township, Howe Township, Jackson Township, Juniata Township, Liverpool Township, Miller Township, Northeast Madison Township, Oliver Township, Penn Township, Rye Township, Saville Township, Southwest Madison Township, Spring Township, Toboyne Township, Tuscarora Township, Tyrone Township, Watts Township, and Wheatfield Township. Bloomfield, though sometimes named New Bloomfield, is the county seat.

Neighboring Counties
Cumberland | Dauphin | Franklin | Juniata | Northumberland

Cemeteries
Family History Library Catalog:

"Registration of graves and cemeteries in the eastern area of the county of Juniata : consisting of the townships of Delaware, Fayette, Fermanagh, Greenwood, Monroe, Susquehanna and Walker and the borough of Thompsontown with some cemeteries of Snyder and Perry counties..." It is on one microfilm and has only pieces of Perry, but it could be useful.

30 Perry County, Pennsylvania cemetery records : complete tombstone inscriptions is a 348 page book that includes an index.

"no. 3 (Aug 1978) - Bloomfield burials in 1890" is an article written by Isaac Simmers.

"no. 2 (April 1977) - Burial grounds" is another article but contains information on the Van Camp burial ground; Burial gound report; Limestone Presbyterian Churchyard; German tombstones in Zion (Toboyne) Chuchyard at Blain.

"no. 4 (1979) - Perry Valley burial grounds" another article but is an from the "Newport News" on May 27, 1897 listing names of persons buried in the area without tombstones or whose tombstones have been destroyed.

Ancestry's Red Book:

"Large collections of cemetery records are located at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and at many local libraries and historical societies. The Pennsylvania State Library maintains the state’s Daughters of the American Revolution cemetery collection (see page 7). Records for several Philadelphia funeral directors are in the Collections of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (housed at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania). The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania microfilmed cemetery records throughout the commonwealth and is currently indexing cemetery records in their collections. Various compilations of cemetery inscriptions have been published, such as those for the western counties by Closson Press and Mechling Books."

On Cyndi's List there are some websites dealing with cemeteries.

http://www.daddezio.com/cemetery/junction/CJ-PA-NDX.html is useful as it gives the locations of the cemeteries in Pennsylvania that one can then go and search if needed.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=csr&amp;CScnty=2290 has the name of the cemetery, how many intered and some photos. You can search the site by names and will reveal multiple states.

Church
Family History Library Catalog

Classified index to Churches between the mountains : a history of the Lutheran congregations in Perry County, Pennsylvania by Rev. D. H. Focht is a book that is more about history, but it may lead to where one needs to look.

Ancestry's Red Book

http://wiki.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pennsylvania_Church_Records is the digitized version that has links to multiple societies and churches for more information on what is contained or how to contact them to get information.

Web Sites

 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
 * http://www.tcrpc-pa.org/assets/adeptiv/upload/attach/2011%20PC%20CDB.pdf, is a free pamphlete with information about the boroughs and townships in there current times, but does give office locations and contact information.
 * http://www.tcrpc-pa.org/assets/adeptiv/upload/attach/2011%20PC%20CDB.pdf, is a free pamphlete with information about the boroughs and townships in there current times, but does give office locations and contact information.