Montgomery County Pennsylvania, Hatfield Ledger Book 1858~1904.

Montgomery County Pennsylvania, Hatfield Ledger Book 1858~1904. This great old farm ledger came from New Hanover Township in Montgomery County Pennsylvania. The original owner of the book did not sign his full name (he just put Hatfield at the top of each page) however there is a loose paper from 1878 in the book that belonged to James G Hatfield. James was not born until 1864 and as the book starts in 1858 I have made the assumption that this book first belonged to his Father or Grandfather.

I found the Hatfield family in the 1880 United States Federal Census, New Hanover, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

• David Hatfield, born about 1807 in Pennsylvania — Head

• Sarah Hatfield, born about 1808 in Pennsylvania — Wife

• Cyrus H. Hatfield, born about 1861 in Pennsylvania — Grandson

• James G. Hatfield, born about 1864 in Pennsylvania — Grandson

The Hatfield ledger is a great genealogy find for this area of Pennsylvania as it contains a large number of local names starting in 1858. I had a hunt for a few of the names found in this ledger in the 1860 United States Federal Census and found many of them in Montgomery County, Berks County and Bucks County.

The entries for each person in this book are extremely varied. They list things like work done by people for the Hatfields, work done for others by the Hatfields, items bought and sold. There are some birth records, records of money changing hands, and even some poetry. This book is a fascinating look into the daily lives of our ancestors. Many people are listed a number of times allowing us to form a detailed picture of what they were doing over several years. Many times our ancestors are just names and dates but a book like this one helps to bring their lives into focus.

I have made a list of the surnames in the book. As is often the case some of the hand writing was hard to read and the spelling was a little inconsistent. I have left the spelling as I found it.

The original scanned ledger pages are also on file; a full page-by-page transcription has not yet been done.