Records of the Society of Friends (Quakers)

New York Yearly Meeting

by Suzanne McVetty, C.G. Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Fall 1997

The Quaker movement began in England in the 1650s and soon spread to the New World. In 1657 the first Quaker missionaries from England arrived in New Amsterdam aboard the Woodhouse. They quickly attracted supporters in the English towns on Long Island: Flushing, Hempstead, Newtown, and Gravesend, as well as in Oyster Bay beyond the jurisdiction of the Dutch.

Meetings for worship were at first held informally at someone's home or in the countryside. It was not until 1672 that George Fox and his associates brought the business meeting structure to New York Friends. The Society of Friends is organized around the Yearly Meeting which is divided into Half-Yearly or Quarterly Meetings, which are made up of Monthly Meetings. The Monthly Meeting in turn consists of Preparative Meetings which prepare business for the Monthly Meeting. The site of the Monthly Meeting rotates among the Preparative Meetings on a regular schedule. It is at the Monthly Meeting level that the records meaningful for genealogists are kept.

The earliest reliable New York minutes are those of Flushing Monthly Meeting. This meeting was part of New England Yearly Meeting, centered in Rhode Island, until 1695 when New York Yearly Meeting was established. New York Yearly Meeting would grow to cover all of New York State, some Meetings in Canada, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, and at least one in northern Pennsylvania.

Minutes. The records of the Monthly Meeting can be divided into two groups: minutes and registers. The Monthly Meeting consisted of a men's as well as a women's meeting, each of which created minutes. Often business conducted at the women's meeting would be referred to the men's meeting, so two records of an event may exist. Minutes were taken by the Clerk of the Meeting, and the format and content may vary from one clerk to another.

Coming before the Monthly Meeting, Quakers would request permission to marry, ask for certificates in order to move to another Meeting, or request membership. The Monthly Meeting was also responsible for enforcing Friends' rules or disciplines. One could be formally disowned for marrying someone who was not a Quaker, having a child too soon after marriage, or lesser offenses like drunkenness, supporting the military, not paying one's debts, fornication, or being dishonest in business.

Membership in the Quaker Meeting could be either as a birthright Friend, whose parents were both members in good standing when he or she was born, or as a convinced Friend, who requested membership of the Meeting. If children were not born birthright members for one reason or another, they or their parents would have to request "clearness" for membership for them. When whole families requested membership, often the children are named in the minutes.

When members went against the disciplines of the Meeting, it was noted in the minutes. Committees were formed to talk to the individuals and see if they were sorry for their misconduct. If they showed remorse, the members came before Meeting to express their regret and be reinstated, which they almost always were. If members did not express regret, as was often the case when marrying someone who was not a Friend, they were usually disowned. This all should be mentioned in the minutes. Being disowned meant they could not contribute to the Meeting, they could not serve on committee, their names would not be mentioned in the minutes, their children would not be birthright Quakers. They could still attend Meeting, but their position within the Quaker community was lost. They might, however, upon acknowledgment, still be reinstated some time later; this was particularly true if they wished to remove to another Meeting.

Registers. Registers created by the Clerk of the Monthly Meeting include the Register of Births and Deaths, and the Register of Marriages and Removals. Vital records were not part of the organization of Quaker Meetings until 1810, when it was decided to take note of births and deaths within the Quaker community. Some Meetings had records of members at an earlier date, but it was the new Discipline of 1810 that specified keeping birth and death records. In some Monthly Meetings' registers the records list all members and their ages as of 1810; in others they only began keeping record of those Quakers who were born or died starting in 1810.

Two aspects of Quaker belief should be noted in connection with their birth and death records. Water baptisms are not part of the Quaker faith, so there are no baptismal records as with other denominations. Also, tombstones were not permitted in Quaker cemeteries until 1852. If a Quaker gravestone bears a date of death before 1852, you will know the stone was probably placed at a later date in memory of the departed. Quakers were not required to be buried in Quaker cemeteries and many who are buried in Quaker cemeteries were not Friends, though they frequently had family connections who were Meeting members.

Registers of Marriages and Removals consist of marriage and removal certificates. When a couple wanted to be married, the bride and groom approached their respective Preparative Meetings for permission to marry. Their requests were referred to the Monthly Meeting, where they can be found in the minutes. Committees were formed in the men's meeting for the groom and in the women's meeting for the bride, to see if the intended were clear to marry — that they had no outstanding commitments elsewhere. In the case where bride and groom lived under different Monthly Meetings, the groom would have a certificate of clearness from his Meeting to bring to the bride's Meeting. This should be noted in the minutes of both Monthly Meetings. When the committees met again and reported both parties were clear to marry, that would be noted in the minutes. After the marriage occurred, the committee would report that the marriage took place. This reporting of the accomplished marriage, along with the marriage certificate, are the official records of the event.

It should be remembered that unlike other Christians, Quakers have no clergy, so the bride and groom spoke their marriage vows to each other, in the presence of their families and other witnesses. The marriage certificate, signed by the couple and by all those who attended the event, was recorded in the Marriage Register. It usually includes the names of the bride and groom, their places of residence, and their parents' names. When the Recorder copied the certificate into the Register, he would list as many names of witnesses as he had room for. The original certificate, with signatures of all present, was kept by the couple, and many of them are still owned by descendants or have been placed in libraries and archives.

If Friends decided to move, they needed permission from the Monthly Meeting. Permission, in the form of a removal certificate, would be issued if their affairs were in order — they did not leave debts behind, they were not intended to marry. Members would request clearness to join another Meeting, a committee would be assigned to make sure all was in order, and permission would then be granted. This would all be recorded in the minutes of the Monthly Meeting. Registers of Removals recorded the formal consent granted to an individual or a family. The name(s) of those removing (though sometimes not the names of the individual family members), and the Meeting to which they were going, would be included. The departing Friends would take their own copies of the certificates to the new Meetings where they would be accepted as members. Technically the new Meeting was to keep the certificates of those in-coming, but few survive. If they were advised by the committee not to go, and they went anyhow, that could lead to disownment.

Separation of 1828. As with many other religions of the time, there was much unrest in the Society of Friends in the early 19th century. In 1828 the Society divided into separate factions called Orthodox and Hicksite. The Hicksites took their name from Elias Hicks of Jericho, Long Island. See Bliss Forbush, Elias Hicks: Quaker Liberal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956) [BX7795 H5F67]. The separation in New York did not formally end until 1955.