Is this a Quaker related?

Question

I need help with an ancestor. My 2nd great grandfather Cpt.Mathew Kersey married Hannah P. Brown in 1860 Philadelphia Pennsylvania at a Monthly Meeting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.im guessing this is Friends or Quaker place. It’s listed as Cpt Mathew Curtzy and Hannah P Brown. I don’t know how to verify this. 2nd from research so far , it appears tentatively that some brothers and sister who may have been at these meetings went a a bit mentally sideways and ended up in a friend’s asylum and I need to figure this out and if there may of been an environmental element that was contagious.

Comments

Kelly, where are you finding this marriage record? Can you provide a link to the index or the document? The Matthew Kersey b 1836 in Delaware?

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Pennsylvania Marriages 1709-1940 database family search. Event June 1860

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C-H Geschwind below is correct that the Family Search index of Pennsylvania Marriages says this is Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (yes, Quaker). The index is probably correct but the image can only be viewed at a Family History Center (or affiliate library) to confirm this as well as check the spellings of the names involved (is Cansey a transcription error, is Kersey an error?). The meeting minutes of this period do not appear to be available online.

The next place to search to see if you can find online information is the TriCollege Library Quaker Special Collections. Some of these have at least indexes that can be searched, most of the collections are not yet digitized.

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Adding on. I thought maybe Selby Publishing might have the minutes for Philadelphia MM for this period but it does not appear that they do. What they do have for Pennsylvania can be found here.

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Didn't find it the first time but here's the correct page for Philadelphia MM records at TriCollege Library. http://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/repositories/9/resources/5588

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Hi Kelly, I have been trying to confirm several marriages in a family in Kensington, Philadelphia in the 1800s (1860s to 1880s) and used the same FamilySearch database (Pennsylvania Marriages 1709-1940). It returned 6 records of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting marriages for this family, but  they were likely Presbyterian/Protestant Episcopal. I emailed Swarthmore College Friends Historical Library and they mentioned they get calls about some marriages listed on FamilySearch as having been performed at Philadelphia Monthly Meeting that were not actually performed there. I then called FamilySearch and had a very pleasant conversation with someone there to ask about this. They recognize there are errors and plan to fix them someday as some microfilms were mistranscribed a long time ago that cannot easily be checked now (FS doesn't own these microfilms but might have an archival copy). FamilySearch does not do lookups, but are checking into this for me (if they actually have an archival copy they can check). I can let you know if I learn anything in 1-2 weeks about marriages that may be incorrectly listed as Phila. Monthly Meeting marriages during this time period.

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This may be a minor point, but (as a Quaker) I did want to point out, people were married under the care of a Monthly Meeting, which is a spiritual covenant between the couple, those who make up the meeting, and God (or the Divine).

They would not have been married at a Monthly Meeting, which seems to imply that a Monthly Meeting is a place.

The place of the marriage would be where folks gathered to worship, usually the meetinghouse, but it could be elsewhere.  The meetinghouse itself is not the Monthly Meeting.

A question might be, in which meetinghouse did the wedding take place in, to find the records.  None of the meetinghouses (as far as I can find) were called Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.

The only one with "Philadelphia" in the title that I have seen is Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which connects several Monthly Meetings in the same area.  Wherever they archive the minutes might reveal the marriage, but they would be sorted by meetinghouse.

(Note that for some time around 1828, there were two groups claiming to be Philadelphia Yearly Meeting as there had been a split between Orthodox and Hicksite Quakers. I think best to go with current PYM, which is Hicksite).

Race Street Meetinghouse (now Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting) was built in 1856, and is on 1515 Cherry St (I don't know why it was named Race St. Mh!)  It is still there and in use for many Quaker organizations as well as worship & marriages. There is also an Arch St Friends Meetinghouse in Philadelphia, built in the early 1800's and still there and in use.

There are probably other, smaller Monthly Meetings (and meetinghouses) in Philadelphia, any one of which could be used for a Quaker marriage, some Orthodox, some Hicksite.   (Frankfort Friends, started late 1700's, Germantown Friends meeting, Twelfth Street Meetinghouse, Green St Meetinghouse, North Meetinghouse,

Apologies if this was no help or added confusion.

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Thanks for your reply. FamilySearch (FS) will see if they can help me with the particular marriage record that was indexed by their volunteers . The online indexed record indicates that the marriage location for the marriage event in 1873 occurred at the location "Philadelphia Monthly Meeting." FS mentioned it will take a few weeks so I will repost their answer when  I hear back from them. It is possible that the record was indexed incorrectly so FS will check the original record if they have a copy. Thanks again for your reply.

Answer 1

For others looking into this question: the relevant profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brown-97209, which already has a printout from familysearch.org of the entry from the Pennsylvania marriages database for this as an image. In this database the two parties to the marriage are transcribed as Matthew Cansey (born 1836 in Chester, PA) and Hannah P. Brown (born 1837 in Chester, PA). The database indeed identifies this as Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, which is indeed a Quaker institution.

Comments

When I i first asked the question, I hD not posted the image or had addressed the misspelling with the kersey, Curtzy, Cansey name. My apologies. But any information would be great!

Answer 2

Hannah is listed as a Quaker, but I have found no Quaker record for this. Her father’s profile has no sources. I find no Quaker birth record for her. My best guess is that the marriage was not done at the Philadelphia MM and this is an error. I searched the Ancestry Quaker database with no records for this timeframe for Hannah and no records for a Matthew Cansey/Kersey