Gilbert Cope

GILBERT COPE 18404 928 The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania has reason to be very proud that one of its most respected and beloved genealogists has been elected to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame by the National Genealogical Society. The announcement of his election was made at their annual Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi on 29 April 1988. He joins two distinguished genealogists, Donald Lines Jacobus and Walter Goodwin Davis in the Hall of Fame. Their portraits hang in the Octagon Room of the historic Glebe House, headquarters of the National Genealogical Society in Arlington, Virginia. In a special four-page publication highlighting Gilbert Cope's genealogical career the National Genealogical Society has sketched the life of Gilbert Cope and his accomplishments. "Gilbert Cope has been called 'the father of genealogical research in Pennsylvania.' During a period of time when New England genealogists dominated the field, he became the leading authority on Quaker genealogy and on the history of Chester County, Pennsylvania. His contribution to genealogy went beyond the compiling of family data; he did more than anyone before him had done to preserve Quaker records and make them available to other researchers. "Gilbert Cope was born 17 August 1840 at the homestead purchased by his great-grandfather in 1712 in East Bradford Township, Chester County. Reared in the tradition of the Orthodox Friends, he was fifth in descent from Oliver Cope (ca. 16474697), one of William Penn's First Purchasers who came to Pennsylvania from Wiltshire in 1683. After attending a family school, he was educated at the Friends' School in West Chester and at Westtown Friends' Boarding School. "Following an early interest in botany, at the age of seventeen he turned his attention to genealogy and began collecting information on his paternal line. His first book, The Cope Family, was published in 326 Gilbert Cope 527 1861. Some of his earlier works were slender volumes done on a hand printing press in his father's home. "Over the next sixty-four years he published major works on the Dutton, Sharpless, Dunwoody, Hood, Darlington, Smedley, Bailey, Kirk, and Brinton families. Milton Rubincam has written that all of his family histories 'bear the stamp of painstaking and conscientious effort in ascertaining the facts based upon documentary evidence.' (The American Genealogist, 36:14). "His two best known published works are The History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (1881) which he compiled with M. Smith Futhey and Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania (2 vols., 1904) on which he collaborated with Henry Graham Ashmead. "The vast majority of Gilbert Cope's work remains in manuscript and constitutes his principal contribution to genealogy. He copied thousands of pages of Quaker records and made abstracts of births, deaths, and marriages. He mounted into books loose Quaker meeting papers, as well as many loose Chester County records, thereby saving them from destruction. An expert photographer, he did much photographing of historical documents and old buildings. "In 1920 he donated his collection of genealogical and historical materials to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It has been written that no one can write the history of a Chester County family or of Chester County without examining this collection. "His books, maps, newspapers and other published materials were added to the Society's regular collection. His photographs and the original historical papers, many of which date to the time of William Penn, are in the Society's Manuscript Division. The abstracted and compiled genealogical materials constitute the Gilbert Cope Collection of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. This collection consists of ninety-five large volumes of material relating to families of Pennsylvania, New jersey, and some southern states, but primarily to Quaker families of the Chester County area. Included are family charts, Bible records, cemetery transcriptions, newspaper clippings, and letters. The collections of the Historical Society and the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania are combined at the headquarters of the Historical Society in Philadelphia. "In 1905 and 1907 Cope and his wife Anna Garrett (1848-1918) spent over nine months in London copying early Quaker meeting 328 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine records. In a statement describing this work, Cope wrote: 'What has been done by Henry F. Waters for the settlers of New England, I hope in a measure to accomplish for the Quaker colonies of the Middle States, with whose history on this side I am probably more familiar with than any other person.' (The American Genealogist, 36:14) These thirty volumes of transcripts, in the manuscript collections of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania are an essential source for researching pre-American origins of Quaker families. "In 1861 Cope was made a corresponding member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. In 1893 he was a founder of the Chester County Historical Society, which he served for twenty-seven years as secretary and director. He was president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Historical Societies in 1911-1912. In 1912 he was elected an honorary member of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania and in 1924 he became an honorary vice president of the Society. "Throughout his life his interest in genealogy remained pre— eminent. He was apt to question anyone he met for the first time: `Now who was thy father? What was thy mother's maiden name? Who was thy grandfather? To those who knew him well he personified John Greenleaf Whittier's "Quaker of the olden time, How calm and firm and true." "Gilbert Cope died 17 December 1928 in Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. His enormous contributions to local history and genealogy were recognized in his lifetime. On the occasion of his eighty-eighth birthday he received a number of letters of tribute from friends and colleagues. These letters were reprinted in 1929, along with a memorial tribute by the historian Dr. Albert Cook Myers in the Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, (10:242-9)." Note: The publication of The National Genealogical Society which has been quoted here in part is available from The National Genealogical Hall of Fame, 4527 17th Street, North, Arlington, Virginia 22207-2399 for $1.50.