Hello Merle, welcome to the list No, you have been misinformed (unless you are talking about specifically BMD records kept by the county, and in that case I don't know). MGM county was carved out of Phila County in 1783/4 (help me listers, please, I never get it down to the right year). I am partial to Wills. Or cemeteries. For a rather complete list of wills, go to http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/montgomery/wills and prior to 1784 go to http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/philadelphia/wills and if your family spills over into Bucks Co or Chester, which happens, try higher up at just http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa and click on bucks or chester. you 'll have to figure out exactly which file is the index of the wills but it's a lot of fun. The reason I think the slow way of going through will abstracts is that names changed spelling and if you so search on a search engine, you might miss it. Many of the Churches and Meetinghouses have partial online transcriptions; it depends on your family. Mine was Mennonite and there are a number of books available which help in creating a skeleton. Michel > From: ORGANIZR01@aol.com > Date: Samedi 02 juillet 2005 6:42 > To: PAMONTGO-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Vital records questions > > I'm new to this list and have some questions about vital records. > > 1. Am I correct that Montgomery County began keeping vital records in 1893? > 2. If so, would the best source of information about events before 1893 be > church records? > 3. I understand that the County has birth and death records from 1893 to > 1915 available. Where would I look for marriage records? > 4. Can anyone suggest a German Reformed church in Swedesboro that existed > about 1840?