Lancaster County Historical Society Online Resources

Some of the greatest wealth in genealogical data is held by local and county historical societies and archives. While most of the information must be researched by an actual visit to the location, some societies, with the assistance of government and charitable funds have been slowly digitizing some of these records. Such is the case with Lancaster County Historical Society in Lancaster Pennsylvania. While recently visiting their website I discovered a treasure trove of digitized records that I previously wasn’t aware of, and I thought I’d share them with you here.

Lancaster County PA Directories

Thanks to a Library Services and Technology Act grant they digitized all of their city and county residential and commercial directories from 1843 to 1914 for Lancaster County PA. These directories list residents in the city and the county by name and street address and can help locate people on an annual basis and additionally list businesses and professionals.

• Browse or search Lancaster Directories, 1843-1922
  • Lancaster City Directories 1843-1900
  • Lancaster City Directories 1901-1914
  • Lancaster City Directories 1914-1922
• Instructions for searching Lancaster Directories

They’ve also placed online a variety of historical Newspapers dealing with Lancaster County. Some of these are hosted on their own site, and in some cases, they’ve teamed up with archive.org to place them online.

• Lancaster Examiner and Herald 1834-1854
• Lancaster Examiner and Herald 1855-1872
• Browse or Search The Lancaster Farmer
  • Instructions for using The Lancaster Farmer
• Browse or Search The Intelligencer Journal
• Browse or Search The Columbia Spy
• The New Holland Clarion 1873-1890
• The New Holland Clarion 1891-1910
• The New Holland Clarion 1911-1950