County Histories

• The Pennsylvania Room has state and county histories for genealogical and historical research.
• We have the four well-known histories of Fayette County: Nelson's Biographical Dictionary and Historical Reference of Fayette County; Ellis' History of Fayette County; Gresham and Wiley's Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Fayette County, Pennsylvania; and Jordan's Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
• We also have county histories for the surrounding counties in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

City Histories and Directories

• The Pennsylvania Room has city histories of Uniontown, Connellsville and Brownsville that were written in the early 1900s.
• City or town directories list names, residences, occupations, etc. for a given time. These directories are particularly useful for research around the turn of the twentieth century.
• Although the collection of early directories is incomplete, for some of these materials our collection begins in 1859; other parts of the collection encompass the years 1900 through 1960.
• We have no directories for Brownsville after 1910.
• We also have town histories for Smithfield, Perryopolis, Mill Run, Dawson, Masontown and Republic.

The Pennsylvania Room has microfilmed copies of the local newspapers beginning in 1805 up to the present with some years incomplete. A complete list of archived Uniontown newspapers on microfilm is available in the Room. These archives allow our patrons to research Uniontown's earliest printed publications and those recently released by the Uniontown Herald-Standard.

The obituary card catalog, an alphabetically arranged name index to obituaries in the newspaper from the late 1800s to 1950 is filed on catalog cards in the Pennsylvania Room. Similarly, an alphabetically arranged file of index cards highlights "Headlines of Fayette County" beginning in the 1880s. The researcher can use both these files in conjunction with the microfilmed newspapers to pinpoint the date of a death or an event if that information was not already known.

Please read the instructions and cost of copies for the microfilm reader located under Pennsylvania Room Policies.

The Pennsylvania Room has a variety of tools such as history books covering both specific and general areas of American or local history.


Other materials include copies of official government records detailing military service. Names are arranged alphabetically within listings by state, region and company. Based on these records, information such as enlistment dates, discharges, rank, residence, injuries pension information or honors may be obtained by contacting state or national archives.

We have some books which record the history of military units composed of Fayette County enlistments.

Fayette County has approximately 440 known cemeteries that the "National Society Colonial Dames of XVII Century" mapped. The Pennsylvania Room has compilations for about 250 of these cemeteries.

The library staff and volunteers have been compiling a surname index for each of these cemeteries.

The Pennsylvania Room has information about local churches and some churches in the surrounding counties. Church histories, often in book form, contain some records about births, baptisms, marriages and deaths. Information is listed chronologically by day unless an alphabetically arranged name index has been compiled to accompany the records. These records were created and kept by the minister who served a congregation. This practice often accounts for vague or missing records within a given church's history.

We also have examples in broader subject areas like those of the Quakers who kept highly detailed records of their members. 

The Pennsylvania Room has many family histories which earlier researchers have compiled and/or published about their families who have roots here in our area.

Passenger ship lists are also helpful in research and are available in the Pennsylvania Room.

Some marriage records from 1885-1915 are on microfilm in the collection.

Tax records are available on microfilm also.

The Pennsylvania Room has copies of early land grants, warrants and surveys that have been indexed.

In addition, there are atlases showing owners of property for the year 1858, 1865 and 1872. These atlases are also indexed.

Beeson's Town lots from
Ellis' History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania

Census records are especially useful in genealogical research. 

The Pennsylvania Room has census information for all of Fayette County on film and some in book form starting with the 1790 United States Census and continuing through the 1920 Census.

Information in census records is arranged alphabetically by township.

Our holdings also include some census information for the entire state.

Agricultural, industrial and mortality schedules are also in our collection.

The Pennsylvania Room has copies of the 138 volumes of the Pennsylvania Archives. The first sixteen volumes of the Pennsylvania Archives form a series known as the Colonial Records, an invaluable resource for those interested in the individuals prominent in our state's early history.

Dr. Mary Dunn, a native of Uniontown, created an index of the Colonial Records. The Friends of the Uniontown Public Library sponsored the publication of this index, which is also available in the Pennsylvania Room.