About
What records you’ll find on these web pages: non-active, permanent records of the various Cumberland County Offices and Departments that are primarily pre-1950.
What records you won’t find on these web pages: active and non-active, permanent and non-permanent records from 1750 to the present in volume or loose paper format still maintained by the various Offices and Departments.
Record Series Information
Information for a Record Series includes:
- Title
- Date span
- Format
- Quantity
- Location
- Description: for a general description of a record series
- Inventory: for a listing of individual papers. Most inventories are arranged chronologically from the earliest date. To sort by a field heading (name, etc.), click on the field heading title. All sorts are alphabetical or numerical in ascending or descending order.
- Holdings: for dates of individual volumes of a series, content different from the general description, and location of each volume.
Additional Record Series for volumes and papers will be added as prepared.
Helpful Explanations
Abbreviations
Various abbreviations that appear include:
- "Ass’t" for assistant
- "Boro" for borough
- "c" for cubic feet
- "Info #" in the inventory of a paper's series for an informational sheet (not a document).
Example: Artificial name index for papers in the series Board of Relief, Civil War (Commissioners).
- "Jan" for January, "Feb" for February, etc.
- "NA" for not applicable
- "ND" for no date
- "NR" for not recorded
- "No." for number or North
- "pg" for page
- "T" for court term
- "Twp" for township
- "Vol(s)." for volumes
Date Ranges
- Dates with a hyphen (-) between them (1750-1782) means all years present
- Dates with an ellipsis (…) between them (1750…1782) means there are year gaps
Other Explanations or information
- "[ ]" for information not actually in a document but based on research
- Various spellings exist for the various townships. A list of these variations can be in Appendix A on the History pages.
- Various spellings exist for names. Example: Kauffman, Cauffman. Consider possible spelling variations when referring to a name field.
- "Alphabetical groupings" as a description of an index means that under a letter, surnames all begin with that letter, but are not in alphabetical order, but as entered in the volume. Thus Dudley would be before Dickinson because Dudley would appear first in actual volume, usually in a chronological order.
- Municipalities represent townships, boroughs, and towns.
- A list of selected office holders can be found in Appendix B on the History pages. Additions and refinements will often be made to this list.
- "0 vols" indicates that a volume is either part of another volume or is missing.
Additional Information
More resources can be found on the Cumberland County Archives website at https://www.ccpa.net/CountyArchives