Somerset County, New Jersey Genealogy

United States

New Jersey

Somerset County

Somerset County, New Jersey ancestry, family history, and genealogy research page. Guide to genealogy, history, and courthouse sources including birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, wills, deeds and land records, Civil War records, Revolutionary War records, family histories, cemeteries, churches, tax records, newspapers, and obituaries.

New Jeresy Online Genealogy Records

Somerset County, New Jersey
Map
Location in the state of New Jersey, United States Genealogy
Location of New Jersey in the U.S.
Facts
Founded	May 14, 1688
County Seat	Somerville
Courthouse
[[Image: |center|200px]]
Address	Somerset County Courthouse 20 Grove St, PO Box 3000 Somerville, NJ 08876 Phone: (908) 231-7006 Somerset County Website

Description

Somerset County is located in the north central region of the state. It was created in 1688. Somerville is the county seat. The county was named for the county of Somerset in England.

Somerset County, New Jersey Record Dates

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records
Birth*	Marriage	Death*	Court	Land	Probate	Census
1901	1765	1901	1777	1765	1794	1830
*Statewide registration for births and deaths started in 1840. General compliance by 1920.

Somerset County, New Jersey Historical Facts

Local histories are available for New Jersey counties. County histories may include biographies, church, school and government history, and military information. For more information about local histories see the wiki page section New Jersey Local Histories.

Parent County

• 26 May 1688, created from Middlesex County.

Boundary Changes

• 1710, boundaries changed.
• 1714, part back to Middlesex County.
• 13 March 1714, part set off to be Hunterdon County.
• 1741, part from Essex County.
• 1749, boundary with Morris County defined.
• 1790, boundary changes with Middlesex County and again in 1855, 1858 and 1878.
• 22 February 1838 1838, part of Montgomery twp set off to form Mercer County.
• 1844, Tewksbury twp. from Hunterdon County and restored in 1845.
• 1850, part of Fanklin twp. added to to North Brunswick twp., Middlesex County.
• 1876, Union County boundary clarified.
• 1965, Hunterdon County boundary clarified.

For animated maps illustrating New Jersey county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation New Jersey County Boundary Maps" (1683-1928) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Record Loss

1779 Fire burned the courthouse.

For suggestions about research in places that suffered historic record losses, see:

• Burned Counties. By Michael John Neill at 24-7 Family History Circle.
• When the Records are Gone. By Arlene Eakle at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog.
• Burned Counties Research in the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

Resources

Cemeteries

Tombstone Transcriptions Online	Tombstone Transcriptions in Print	List of Cemeteries in the county
Findagrave.com	Family History Library	Findagrave.com
NJGenWeb	WorldCat	Billion Graves
NJGenWeb Archives		FamilySearch Places
NJTombstone Project
NJInterment
Billion Graves
See New Jersey Cemeteries for more information.

Census

Historical populations
Census	Pop.	%±
1790	12,296	—
1800	12,815	4.2%
1810	14,725	14.9%
1820	16,506	12.1%
1830	17,689	7.2%
1840	17,455	−1.3%
1850	19,692	12.8%
1860	22,057	12.0%
1870	23,510	6.6%
1880	27,162	15.5%
1890	28,311	4.2%
1900	32,948	16.4%
1910	38,820	17.8%
1920	47,991	23.6%
1930	65,132	35.7%
1940	74,390	14.2%
1950	99,052	33.2%
1960	143,913	45.3%
1970	198,372	37.8%
1980	203,129	2.4%
1990	240,279	18.3%
2000	297,490	23.8%
2010	323,444	8.7%
Source: "Wikipedia.org".

• 1855 New Jersey, State Census, 1855 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection
• 1865 New Jersey, State Census, 1865 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection
• 1895 New Jersey, State Census, 1895 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection
• 1915 New Jersey State Census, 1915 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection

Church Records

Church records and the information they provide vary significantly depending on the denomination and the record keeper. They may contain information about members of the congregation, such as age, date of baptism, christening, or birth; marriage information and maiden names; and death date. For general information about denominations, view the New Jersey Church Records wiki page.

• 1675-1970 - New Jersey, Church Records, 1675-1970 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection
• 1727-1734 - Skillman, William Jones. "Earliest Baptismal Records of the Church of Harlingen (Reformed Dutch) of New Jersey. 1727-1734," The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct. 1909):281-291. Digital versions at Internet Archive - free; New York Family History ($); FHL Book 974.7 B2n v. 40.

List of Churches and Church Parishes

• FamilySearch Places
  

Emigration and Immigration

• 1906-1942 - New York Book Indexes to Passenger Lists, 1906-1942 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection

Gazetteers

• FamilySearch Places:Cities and Towns- How to Use FS Places

History

Local histories are available for New Jersey counties. County histories may include biographies, church, school and government history, and military information. For more information about local histories see the wiki page section New Jersey Local Histories.

Land and Property

Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts and indexes, mortgages, leases, grants and land patents.

See New Jersey Land and Property for information about New Jersey Proprietary land records. After land was transferred to private ownership, subsequent transactions were usually recorded at the county courthouse and where records are currently housed.

Maps

Click a neighboring county
for more resources

• FamilySearch Places:Cities and Towns- How to Use FS Places

Migration

Early migration routes to and from Somerset County, New Jersey Genealogy for settlers included:

• Raritan River a navigable river which rises in Morris County and flows through central New Jersey past Manville to New Brunswick where it meets the tide.
• Delaware and Raritan Canal 1834 connected New Brunswick, New Jersey on the Raritan River (and NY City) to Bordontown, New Jersey on the Delaware River and parts of Pennsylvania including Philadelphia.

Naturalization and Citizenship

• 1796-1991 - New Jersey Naturalization Records, 1796-1991 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection

Newspapers

Additional newspapers abstracts can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Somerset County, New Jersey Genealogy newspapers in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• Do a Somerset County, New Jersey Genealogy Place-name search for these and other records in the FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Places Search).

Populated Places

For a complete list of populated places, including small neighborhoods and suburbs, visit HomeTown Locator. The following are the most historically and genealogically relevant populated places in this county:

Boroughs
Bernardsville Bound Brook Far Hills Manville	Millstone North Plainfield Peapack-Gladstone Raritan	Rocky Hill Somerville South Bound Brook Watchung
Unincorporated communities
Amwell Basking Ridge Cloverhill Dutchtown Flagtown Free Acres Gladstone	Lamington Liberty Corner Little Rocky Hill Lyons Middlebrook Neshanic Neshanic Station	North Branch Pluckemin Pottersville Rockingham South Branch Stoutsburg Zion
Census-designated places
Belle Mead Blackwells Mills Blawenburg Bradley Gardens Clyde East Franklin East Millstone East Rocky Hill Finderne	Franklin Center Franklin Park Green Knoll Griggstown Harlingen Kingston Martinsville Middlebush	Pleasant Plains Six Mile Run Skillman Somerset Ten Mile Run Voorhees Weston Zarephath
Townships
Bedminster Bernards Branchburg	Bridgewater Franklin Green Brook	Hillsborough Montgomery Warren

Probate Records

Probate records created after 1852 are held by the Somerset County, New Jersey Genealogy Probate Court. From 1797 or the creation of the county, probate records were held by the Court of Common Pleas. Most counties transferred all records to the Probate Court, but in some circumstances, Court of Common Pleas records should be searched for records prior to 1852. Most records are housed at the Somerset County, New Jersey Genealogy Courthouse. Some records are on microfilm at the Ohio Genealogical Society and the Family History Library. For more complete information about the location of county probate records see:

See the wiki page New Jersey Probate Records for information about how to use probate records.

Content: Probate Records may give the decedent's date of death, names of his or her spouse, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, neighbors, associates, relatives, and their place of residence.

Record types: Wills, estates, guardianships, naturalizations, marriage, adoption, and birth and death records (1867-1908 only).

Obtaining Copies of County Probate Records

Copies of recorded probate records and the estate files can be obtained from the surrogate's offices for a fee. Addresses of surrogate's offices are found in:

• Eichholz, Alice, Editor. Ancestry's Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. Revised Edition. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, 1992. (Family History Library book 973 D27rb 1992.) Explains state-by-state history, vital records, census, background sources, periodicals, archives, libraries, societies, maps, land, probate, court, tax, cemetery, church, and military records. Includes county boundary map and table which shows when each county was created and the parent counties.

In addition, copies of the original wills, administrations, inventories, and guardianships sent to Trenton since 1901 can be ordered from:

Clerk of the Superior Court
Records Information Center
P.O. Box 967
Trenton, NJ 08625-0967
Phone: (609) 292-4978
Fax: (609) 777-0094

Online Probate Records

• 1656 - 1999 New Jersey Wills and Probate Records 1656-1999 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
• 1670 – 1760 Calendar of New Jersey Wills 1670-1760 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
• 1670 – 1817 New Jersey Abstract of Wills 1670-1817 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
• 1678 - 1980 New Jersey Probate Records 1678-1980 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection

Repositories

Courthouse

Somerset County Courthouse
20 Grove St; PO Box 3000
Somerville, NJ 08876
Phone: (908) 231-7006

County Clerk has court records from 1777 and land records from 1785. County Surrogate has probate records.

Family History Centers

Family History Centers provide one-on-one assistance, free access to center-only databases, and to premium genealogical websites.
FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries have access to most center-only databases, but may not always have full services normally provided by a family history center.

• Family History Center and Affiliate Library Locator

Local Centers and Affiliate Libraries

Societies

Somerset County Historical
9 Van Veghten Dr
Bridgewater, NJ 08807
Telephone: 908-218-1281
E-mail: info@somersethistorynj.org
Website

Somerset Hills, Historical Society Of The
PO Box 136
Basking Ridge NJ 07920
Website

Somerset Historical Center
10649 Somerset Pike
Somerset, PA 15501
Telephone: 814-445-6077
Fax: 814-443-6621
Website

Adopt-a-wiki page This page adopted by: NJGenWeb and its coordinators who welcome you to contribute. Adopt a page today

Taxation

New Jersey tax records complement land records and can be used in place of censuses before 1820 or to supplement the years between censuses. Because only persons who owned taxable property were listed, many residents were not included in tax lists. There may also be gaps of several years in the tax records of some counties. For more information see the wiki page New Jersey Taxation.

Vital Records

Vital Records consist of births, adoptions, marriages, divorces, and deaths recorded on registers, certificates, and documents. United States Vital Records has additional research guidance on researching and using vital records. A copy or an extract of most original records can be purchased from the New Jersey Vital Records State Department of Health or the County Clerk's office of the county where the event occurred. Original marriage records are usually held at the county Bureau of Vital Statistics.

Birth

• 1901-1903, New Jersey, Reclaim the Records, New Jersey Birth Index, 1901-1903 at FamilySearch — How to Use this Collection

Marriage

Online Marriage Indexes and Records

1606-1981 - New Jersey, United States Marriages at FindMyPast — index $

• 1670-1980 - New Jersey, Marriages, 1670-1980 at FamilySearch — How to Use this Collection
• 1930-1938 - New Jersey, Bride Index, 1930-1938 at FamilySearch — How to Use this Collection

Death

• 1901-1903 - New Jersey, Death Index, 1901-1903 at FamilySearch — How to Use this Collection

Somerset County, New Jersey Websites

• Somerset County NJGenWeb
• USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
• Somerset County, New Jersey History, Records, Facts and Genealogy (Familytree101)
• Somerset County NJ Genealogy
• FamilySearch Catalog

Somerset County, New Jersey Neighboring Counties

Bergen Essex Middlesex Morris Union

This website requires a paid subscription for full access.

Family History Library