Burlington County, New Jersey Genealogy

Burlington 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.

Burlington County, New Jersey Historical Facts

 * 1681, court established in province of West Jersey.
 * 1694, formed by union of "1st and 2nd tenths"

Parent County

 * 17 May 1677, Burlington County is the first county created in what is now New Jersey, from the Colonial lands.

Boundary Changes

 * 1692, boundary set with Gloucester County.
 * 1693, Gloucester County boundary repealed.
 * 1710, boundaries more definite.
 * 7 March 1837, part set off to form Atlantic County.
 * 1838, part transferred to Mercer County.
 * 15 February 1850, Ocean County set off. *1857, boundary with Ocean County clarified.
 * 1891, Egg Harbor township transferred to Ocean County.
 * 1902, parts added from Camden and Atlantic counties.

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
There is no known history of courthouse disasters in this county.

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

Census

 * 1745 - Godfrey, Carlos E. "A List of the Freeholders for the City and County of Burlington, and in each Respective Township, taken this 15th Day of April 1745," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 29 (1905):421-426. Digital version at Internet Archive - free.
 * 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:
 * Beverly: Beverly Presbyterian Church; First Presbyterian Church
 * Burlington: Episcopal Church; Providence Presbyterian Church of Bustleton; St. Mary's Hall Church
 * Cinnaminson: Asbury United Methodist Church
 * Hainesport: St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church
 * Medford: Medford Methodist Church
 * Moorestown: First Presbyterian Church; First United Methodist Church; Methodist Episcopal Church
 * Mount Holly: First United Methodist Church; Perinchief Funeral Home; St. Andrew's Episcopal Church; Trinity Episcopal Church
 * Palmyra: Central Baptist Church of Riverton and Palmyra; Epworth United Methodist Church
 * Pemberton: Grace Episcopal Church
 * Riverton: Calvary Presbyterian Church
 * Southampton: Trinity Episcopal Church
 * Tabernacle: Indian Mills Charge Methodist Episcopal Church
 * Vincentown: Vincentown Methodist Church

Additional churches:


 * St Mary Parish, Founded:1837- Address: 45 Crosswicks St, Bordentown, NJ 08505 - Phone: (609) 298-0261 Fax: (609) 298-7178 - Website:

Episcopalian

 * 1702-1836 - "Register of St. Mary's Church, Burlington, N.J.," Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Jun. 1903):241-302. For online access, see WeRelate; see also . Includes baptisms, marriages, marriage banns, and burials.

Quakers

 * 1685-1730 - "Marriages at Chesterfield, New Jersey, 1685-1730. Certificates Records in the Minutes of the Chesterfield (N.J.) Monthly Meeting," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 9 (1885):347-352. For free online access, see WeRelate.

Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups
African American

Lyght, Ernest. Path of Freedom: the Black Presence in New Jersey's Burlington County, 1659-1900 - Cherry Hill, N.J. : E. and E. Pub. House, c. 1978. - 108p. F142.B9 L93

Gazetteers

 * United States Geographic Survey Place Names - GNIS for Burlington County (over 1150 entries) (may not always be present in alphabetic order on first try.)

Migration
Early migration routes to and from for settlers included:


 * Delaware River a pre-historic pathway 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 and parts of Pennsylvania including Philadelphia.

Naturalization and Citizenship

 * 1796-1991 - at FamilySearch — index

Newspapers
Burlington County Newspaper Notices Index Burlington County Newspaper Notices Index

The "Burlington County Newspaper Notices Index" includes citations to birth announcements, marriage announcements, death notices, obituaries, and other related news items gathered from over twenty-five Burlington County area newspapers and publications.

The oldest citations in this index date back to 1810 and are from the Rural Visitor, a newspaper published in Burlington City, from July 1810 to July 1811. The majority of the citations in the database are death notices and marriage announcements from the mid-1800's and 1910-through the WW II era. Most of the birth announcements date from the 1970's-early 1980's. However, no newspaper in the Burlington County Library System microfilm collection has been indexed from the first issue to the last.

Bordentown RegisterBordertown Register The "Bordentown Palladium" was founded in 1845 as a weekly community paper serving the Bordentown region of Burlington County, New Jersey, an area six miles south of Trenton. The newspaper was renamed "Bordentown Register" in 1851 and renamed again in 1966 to"Register-News". Over its 160 years of publication, the newspaper has chronicled the history of the Bordentown region, including local news for surrounding towns of Fieldsboro, Florence, Roebling, Columbus, Chesterfield, Mansfield, and Yardville, marriages and death notices, legislative news, judicial announcements, business and social concerns of the area. Of special note is the news of hometown soldiers in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean, and Vietnam Wars and subsequent.

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

Courthouses
Burlington County Courthouse 49 Rancocas Road; PO Box 6000; Mount Holly, NJ 8060 Phone: (609) 265-5122 County Clerk has land and military records. County Surrogate has probate records. County library has naturalization records.

"Welcome to Burlington County, New Jersey" Board of Chosen Freeholders of Burlington County 49 Rancocas Road Mount Holly, NJ 08060


 * Former seat was Burlington, but when the population moved away from the Delaware River, a new center was needed.

Societies
Burlington County Genealogy Club PO Box 2449, R.D. #2 Mt. Holly

Burlington County Historical Society 457 High Street Burlington City, NJ 08016-44514 Telephone: 609-386-4773 Fax: 609-386-4282 Website

Burlington County Historical Society 457 High Street Burlington City, New Jersey 08016 Telephone: 609-386-4773 Website

Bordentown Historical Society 211 Crosswicks Road Bordentown, NJ 08505 Telephone: 609-298-1740 E-mail:[mailto:skelly.michael@gmail.com skelly.michael@gmail.com] Website

Taxation

 * 1684 - Thompson, John J. "A Burlington County, New Jersey, Assessment List, 1684," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 15 (1891):346-349. For free online access, see WeRelate.

Marriage
Online Marriage Indexes and Records

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

Voting Records

 * 1739 - Thompson, John J. "'Poll Book of an Election in 1739' Burlington County, New Jersey," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 18 (1894):185-193. For free online access, see WeRelate.
 * 1787 - Shinn, Henry C. "An Early New Jersey Poll List," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 44 (1920):77-81. For free online access, see WeRelate.

Marriage
Online Marriage Indexes and Records


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

Burlington County, New Jersey Websites

 * The Burlington County NJGenWeb Project, an member of The NJGenWeb Project, an affiliate of The USGenWeb Project.
 * Burlington County, New Jersey History, Records, Facts and Genealogy (Familytree101)
 * Burlington County NJ Genealogy
 * The USGenWeb Archives Project for Burlington County.
 * The USGenWeb Archives Project for Burlington County. (Backup site)
 * FamilySearch Catalog for Burlington County
 * 1810-1980s Newspaper Notices Index (Search)

Burlington County, New Jersey Neighboring Counties



 * Atlantic
 * Camden
 * Mercer
 * Monmouth
 * Ocean
 * Bucks, Pennsylvania
 * Philadelphia, Pennsylvania