Easton Area Public Library Marx Room

Hours:

Monday - Friday 10am-12pm and 1pm-4pm
Saturday - 9am-12pm and 1pm to 5pm

For a Printable Marx Room Brochure Click HERE

The Marx Room contains local history and genealogy as well as the original collection from the Easton Library Company's first fifteen years (1811-1825). It is the largest collection of its kind in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Included in the more than 15,000 items are books, periodicals, CD-ROM's, census microfilm, newspaper microfilm (1799-date), vertical files, family files, maps, some manuscript material, and specialized indexes to local records. Records collecting and indexing projects are on-going.

DONATIONS: The library accepts donations of local history and genealogy material that enable the library to meet the research and informational needs of our patrons.

Marx Room Newspaper Obituary Indexes

MAIL SERVICE - Photocopies of microfilmed obituaries or newspaper articles cost $5.00 per obituary or article. There is a limit of 10 items per request. All requests must be made by mail. Requests of 5 or more require additional postage. Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope to receive a reply.

Earlier obituaries (and marriages) are indexed in our printed Marriages and Deaths indexes, which cover 1799-1902.   

If you cannot locate someone in our Express-Times obituary index, you might search these indexes of Allentown and Bethlehem newspapers:

Church and Cemetery Records Index

The Easton Area Public Library has over 190 volumes of Northampton County church and cemetery records in its collection.  The complete list is available in our online catalog.  You can search by church or cemetery name, the municipality where the church or cemetery is located, or by the subjects “Church records and registers” or “Cemeteries”

We now have two indexes to these records.

**All Indexes are in .pdf format and are large in size and will take a while to download**

1. WPA Index -  31 volumes of church records were indexed as part of a Works Progress Administration project during the 1930s.  In an effort to make this print index available to researchers, we have digitized it and placed it on our web site.  With one search you will be able to ascertain if a name appears in these 31 volumes of records. 

2. On-line Index - The Library has also begun an indexing project to compile a master index to the church and cemetery records not included in the WPA index.  This online index will include the names of those persons who were baptized, married, or buried.  This is a work in progress, with more than 50 volumes containing about 120,000 names completed.  As more volumes are finished, the index will grow.  

MAIL SERVICE - Photocopies of the transcribed church records cost $1.00 for each page. There is a limit of 10 pages per request. All requests must be made by mail. Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope to receive a reply. Requests of 5 or more pages require additional postage. Click Here for a printable request form.

The Library is accepting volunteers to help index our church and cemetery records.  If you live in the Easton area, have a computer, and would like to help, contact Barbara Wiemann at 610-258-2917 ex. 381 or barbaraw@eastonpl.org.  After an initial in-library training (less than 1 hour), volunteers do the indexing at their convenience in their home.

Your comments on this service are welcome. To email suggestions, Click Here.

The Library’s local imprint newspaper holdings span more than 200 years.  Our oldest issue, volume 1, number 1 of the American Eagle is dated May 10, 1799.  All of our newspaper holdings have been microfilmed and are available during regular library hours.  For a complete list of our holdings, consult our library catalog under the subject American newspapers – Pennsylvania or consult these lists:

Microfilmed Local Newspapers In the Easton Area Public Library

Chronological List of Microfilmed Newspapers

To provide subject access to the wealth of information contained in these newspapers, library staff and volunteers began to index selected portions of the papers.  The multi-volume sets of marriage and death indexes in the Marx Room and the online obituary index (see above) are two results of this work. 

A third project, begun in the 1930s, was an index to local newspaper articles.  For each article, an index card with a heading, short description, and citation was prepared and filed by heading.  Over the years, this file grew to 45 catalog drawers of cards.  To make this local history information available, the information on these cards has been transcribed to a computer database.  Click on the boxes below to access this database.

MAIL SERVICE -  Photocopies of microfilmed newspaper articles cost $5.00 per article.  There is a limit of 10 items per request.  All requests must be made by mail. Requests for 5 or more articles require additional postage.  Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope to receive a reply.  The library will provide the best possible reproduction from our microfilm. Some papers were old and worn when microfilmed, and this affects the quality of the copy.  Click here for the mail order form.

Commercial Databases

These databases are available by inputting your EAPL library card barcode. 

Note that Ancestry.com is only available to users at the library.