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United States 
New Jersey Salem County
Salem County, New Jersey genealogy and family history 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.
| Salem County, New Jersey | |
| Map | |
 Location in the state of New Jersey | |
 Location of New Jersey in the U.S. | |
| Facts | |
| Founded | 1694 |
|---|---|
| County Seat | Salem |
| Courthouse | |
 | |
| Address | Salem County Courthouse 92 Market Street Salem, NJ 08079-1913 Phone: (856) 935-7510 Salem County Website |
Salem County, New Jersey Historical Facts
Local histories are available for New Jersey counties. County histories may include biographies, church, school and government history, and military information. For more information about local histories see the wiki page section New Jersey Local Histories.
1642-1643: The New Sweden Colony expanded from present-day Wilmington, Delaware east to New Jersey. Fort New Elfsborg (Nya Älfborg), now west of Salem, Salem, New Jersey was built as part of New Sweden in 1643 and garrisoned until 1651.[1][2][3]
1654-1655: In 1654 New Sweden captured Fort Casimir (now New Castle, Delaware) from the Dutch without a fight and renamed it Fort Trinty (Trefaldighets).[4] In 1655 New Netherland returned with a large army and all of New Sweden in presend-day Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey submitted to Dutch rule.[5]
1664: As part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War New Netherland including West Jersey was surrendered to the English.[6]
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.[7]
Parent County
- 1681, part of West Jersey
- Created 17 May 1794, from the Colonial lands. [8]
Boundary Changes
- 1700, part of Cape May County added.
- 1710, boundaries clarified.
- 19 January 1748, part set off to become part of Cumberland County. [8]
- 1822, water boundaries established and clarified in 1846.
- 1867, Pittsgrove twp. to Cumerland County and returned in 1868.
Record Loss
Salem County, New Jersey Genealogical Resources
Bible
Cemeteries
Census
Church Records
Church records and the information they provide vary significantly depending on the denomination and the record keeper. They may contain information about members of the congregation, such as age, date of baptism, christening, or birth; marriage information and maiden names; and death date. For general information about Ohio denominations, view the New Jersey Church Records wiki page.
- 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:
- Daretown: Pittsgrove Baptist Church
- Salem: Broadway United Methodist Church; St. John's Episcopal Church
- Upper Penn's Neck: First Baptist Church
- Contains the church records of:
Lutheran
Settlers from Penns Neck attended a Swedish Church at Crane Hook as early as 1667.[9]
1754 and 1786 membership lists of Penns Neck Parish are preserved in Archivum Americanum at the Consistory Court of the Archbishop of Upsal in Sweden.[10]
Court Records
Emigration and Immigration
Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups
Gazetteers
Genealogy
History
Local histories are available for New Jersey counties. County histories may include biographies, church, school and government history, and military information. For more information about local histories see the wiki page section New Jersey Local Histories.
Land and Property
Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts and indexes, mortgages, leases, grants and land patents.
See New Jersey Land and Property for information about New Jersey Proprietary land records. After land was transferred to private ownership, subsequent transactions were usually recorded at the county courthouse and where records are currently housed.
Maps
Migration
Military
Naturalization and Citizenship
Newspapers
Additional newspapers abstracts can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Salem County, New Jersey newspapers in online catalogs like:
- WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
- Do a Salem County, New Jersey Place-name search for these and other records in the Family History Library Catalog (For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search).
Occupations
Periodicals
Poorhouse, Almshouse
Probate Records
Probate records created after 1852 are held by the Salem County, New Jersey Probate Court. From 1797 or the creation of the county, probate records were held by the Court of Common Pleas. Most counties transferred all records to the Probate Court, but in some circumstances, Court of Common Pleas records should be searched for records prior to 1852. Most records are housed at the Salem County, New Jersey Courthouse. Some records are on microfilm at the Ohio Genealogical Society and the Family History Library. For more complete information about the location of county probate records see:
See the wiki page New Jersey Probate Records for information about how to use probate records.
Content: Probate Records may give the decedent's date of death, names of his or her spouse, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, neighbors, associates, relatives, and their place of residence.
Record types: Wills, estates, guardianships, naturalizations, marriage, adoption, and birth and death records (1867-1908 only).
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. (Family History Library book 973 D27rb 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
Repositories
Archives
Courthouse
County Clerk has marriage records 1675-1912, court records from 1707, land records from 1695, naturalization records 1808-1958, military records from 1715 and newspapers from 1819. County Surrogate has probate records from 1804. City Clerks have birth and death records. [8]
Family History Centers
Libraries
Museums
Societies
Schools
Taxation
New Jersey tax records complement land records and can be used in place of censuses before 1820 or to supplement the years between censuses. Because only persons who owned taxable property were listed, many residents were not included in tax lists. There may also be gaps of several years in the tax records of some counties. For more information see the wiki page New Jersey Taxation.
Vital Records
Vital Records consist of births, adoptions, marriages, divorces, and deaths recorded on registers, certificates, and documents. United States Vital Records has additional research guidance on researching and using vital records. A copy or an extract of most original records can be purchased from the New Jersey Vital Records State Department of Health or the County Clerk's office of the county where the event occurred. Original marriage records are usually held at the county Bureau of Vital Statistics.
Salem County, New Jersey Web Sites
- USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
- Family History Library Catalog
Salem County, New Jersey Neighboring Counties
Salem County, New Jersey Genealogy References
- ↑ Amandus Johnson, "Detailed Map of New Sweden 1638-1655" in Amandus Johnson's book The Swedes on the Delaware 1638-1664 (Philadelphia: Swedish Colonial Society, 1915), 392.
- ↑ Munroe, 24. “When ordered to build a fort so situated as to enable the Swedes to control all shipping on the Delaware, Printz constructed Fort Elfsborg on the Jersey shore, south of Salem Creek.”
- ↑ “Kartskiss öfver Nya Sverige 1638-55 (Efter Amandus Johnson)” a map image in the article “Nya Sverige” in Nordisk familjebok. Uggleupplagan. 20. Norrsken - Paprocki (Stockholm: Nordisk familjeboks förlags, 1914; digitized by Projekt Runeberg, 2002), 153-54.
- ↑ "New Sweden" in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden (accessed 7 November 2008).
- ↑ "New Sweden" in Wikipedia.
- ↑ "New Netherland" in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_netherland (accessed 13 December 2008).
- ↑ "New Netherland" in Wikipedia.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America, 10th ed. (Draper, Utah: Everton Pub., 2002), 181. [FHL book 973 D27e 2002].
- ↑ "The Story of Church Boats; First Ferries of the Delaware River," SwedishHeritage.US, http://www.swedishheritage.us/, accessed 14 May 2012.
- ↑ Charles J. Stillé, "Archivum Americanum in the Consistory Court of the Archbishop of Upsal," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 15 (1891):482. For free online access, see WeRelate.
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- This page was last modified on 15 May 2013, at 15:41.
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