Our Research Resources

The county held birth records until 1905. Birth Registration Returns are arranged by year and may contain some or all of the following: name, sex, color, date of birth, place of birth, the number of children the woman had at the time of birth, of them the number of children surviving, father’s name, father’s age, mothers name, mother’s age, where the parents resided, occupation of the father, birthplaces of the parents and the date the birth was recorded. Records after 1905 are maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics.

Act of July 16, 1941 provided an opportunity to register births that had not been previously registered. They are arranged in somewhat of an alphabetical order.

The county held death records until 1905. The register of deaths are arranged by year and may contain some or all of the following information: name, color, sex, age, marital status, place of birth, place of death, cause of death, if due to an illness then the length of the illness, place of interment, date of interment, occupation, name of parents and the date the death was recorded.  Records after 1905 are maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics.

*Birth / Death Records – It was not mandatory to record births or deaths in Luzerne County prior to the state taking over in 1906, therefore a large number of births and deaths were never officially recorded. Utilizing church and cemetery records may be the only documentation you will find prior to 1906.

The index provided is arranged alphabetically by the man’s surname as well as the woman’s maiden name. Next to each of the listings is a license number. The license number is needed to locate the marriage record on each roll.

  Wilkes-Barre Record  -  March 9, 1926

An article stating the Register of Wills office discovered that 800 of the 3,600 marriage licenses issued in 1925 were never returned. Letters were sent to the applicants directing them to notify the priests, ministers or justices who married them to return the license at once. The marriage is not considered legal until returned to the Register of Wills office.

These indexes are arranged alphabetically.  If you knew of the present owner and wanted to know from whom they purchased the property, you would use the Grantee Index. If you knew the name of a property owner and wanted to know to whom the land was passed, you would use the Grantor’s Index. The following is a list of the information included in each entry: grantor/grantee’s name, volume number, page number, date of deed, date of record, and location of property.

This index includes the following: intestate (without a will) and testators’ (with a will) names, the type of proceedings (ex. Petition for sale, order for sale, return of sale, sale continued, account confirmed, guardian appointed, guardian discharged, citation awarded, proof of contract, sheriffs’ return, order to mortgage, petition to mortgage, bond approved and division of personal estate), the year, court docket number and page number.