Start your family tree. We'll start searching. It's FREE. - Enter a few simple facts about recent generations of your family. We'll use what you enter to try and find more about your family in the world's largest online collection of historical records and family trees.

Cape May County History and Information

Cape May County was created on 1692 and was formed from West Jersey Province. The County was named for Cape May, Capt. Cornelius Jacobsen Mey. The County Seat is Cape May. See also County History for more historical details.

Counties adjacent to Cape May County are Atlantic County (north), Cumberland County (northwest).

Cape May County Boroughs Include Avalon, Cape May Point, Stone Harbor, West Cape May, West Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, Woodbine. Cities Include Cape May, North Wildwood, Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Wildwood. Townships Include Dennis Township, Lower Township, Middle Township, Upper Township. CDPs and Communities Include Cape May Court House, Dennisville, Diamond Beach, Erma, Marmora, North Cape May, Strathmere, Tuckahoe, Rio Grande, Villas, Whitesboro-Burleigh.

The Cape May County Official Government Website
Cape May County, New Jersey History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.
Search Historical Newspapers from New Jersey (1777 - 1972) - Quickly find names and keywords in over 125 million articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements and other items published in more than 500,000 issues of over 2,500 historical U.S. newspapers. New content added monthly!
Stories, Memories & Histories - Stories and histories compiled by others researching a person or area can be an amazing source of information about your ancestors. Not only do they generally contain dates and places of vital events like birth, marriage, and death, but they often relate stories and memories that help you really get to know the character of your ancestors.

Records at the County Courthouse

County Vital Records

County Census Records

County Maps & Atlases

County Military Records

County Tax Records

County Genealogical Addresses

County Church & Cemeteries

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Cape May County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Cape May County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

Search for Local New Jersey Researchers or Earn Money by becoming a Local New Jersey Researcher!
Search 60 Years Of Everton Data: For the first time ever you can get access to more than 150,000 pedigree files and family group sheets from Evertons. Learn More
Search the Family Tree DNA Project- Use DNA testing to break through your genealogical barriers!
Sites on USGenweb: [ Cape May County ] [ New Jersey ] [ Main Page ]
Cape May County NJGenWeb Archives
[GenForum Message Boards] [Rootsweb Message Boards]
Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
The New Jersey Family Group Sheet Project
New Jersey Family & Local History Records - The Family & Local Histories Collection lets you read journals, memoirs, and other first-hand historical narratives right on your computer. Gathered from some of the world's finest libraries, these materials may provide hard-to-find town, county, and state information; tax records and wills; military, church, and court records; as well as photographs, stories, and maps.
Genealogical Document Search and Retrieval Service
Cape May County, New Jersey Family Books at Amazon.com

Extended History

In August 28, 1609 Henry Hudson, aboard the yacht Half Moon, was the first recorded European to see the Jersey Cape. Sailing for the Dutch East India Company, he was searching for a northwest passage to the Orient. He explored several miles of shoreline along the Delaware Bay before his 122-ton vessel struck bottom. They anchored for the night.

In the morning a northwest gale forced him to turn back, round the Cape and continue north along the coast of South Jersey. There is no record that he or his crew ever set foot ashore during their brief excursion.

Shortly after Hudson explored the Cape, English navigator Samuel Argall entered the bay. Assuming it was the northern boundary of the Virginia Patent, he named the bay after that colony's governor, Lord De La Warre. But it was the Dutch that first exploited the bay.

Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, after whom the Cape May peninsula is named, explored the area between 1616 and 1624. Captain Mey and other Dutch navigators were exploring the area for trading potential for Dutch merchants. For the next 40 years the Dutch would dominate the Delaware Valley. They built a fort at Swanendael on Lewis Creek across the bay from the Jersey Cape.

The Dutch, however, were not interested in farming. Their focus was on the trading potential of fur trapping, fishing, trade and bartering. It was their lack of permanent settlements, however, that forced them to cede control to the Swedes and the English.

Before that was to happen, however, Samuel Godyn, for the Dutch West India Company, built a whaling factory at Swanendael that functioned between 1630 and 1631. They planned a whaling factory on the Jersey side of South (Delaware) Bay and bought land from the natives. In 1631 Peter Minuit, director-general of New Netherlands confirmed the first recorded patent for European ownership of Jersey Cape Property. The factory never happened.

The period between 1631 and the arrival of offshore whalers from Long Island in the 1680s is almost a blank page. There is myth and folklore, but little solid evidence. By 1685, however, the English had settled permanently on the Cape.

There is a theory that the English began settling Portsmouth on the Cape in the 1640s. This is based upon a scheme that New Haven voted to approved a plan to settle and farm in the Dutch-controlled Delaware Valley. Fifty settlers went to Varens Kill (Salem Creek), 70-miles north of the Cape. Although they planted tobacco, most returned to New Haven, probably because of New Jersey's high cigarette tax. Subsequent attempts in the 1650s were thwarted by New Netherlands governor Peter Stuyvesant.

So, where's the Cape May connection? Folklore has it that some of the New Haven settlers at Varens Kill hadn't returned to Connecticut, but relocated on the undeveloped Jersey Cape in which the Dutch seemed to have lost interest. The earliest recorded Cape May names in the 1680s and 1690s are identical to those of the families that appeared in the New Haven town records in the 1640s: Osborne, Mason, Badcock and Godfrey among others. These are also among the same families that were involved in the aborted Varen Kill settlement.

Despite the lack of records on the Cape during that period, the above concept is not unrealistic. This is further supported by the early whaling expeditions from the Hamptons in Long Island. Offshore whalers would arrive in December and stay until the migrating right whales left the bay in February. It was the South and East Hampton offshore whalers who made mass relocations to the Cape in the 1680s and 1690s. I suppose they could no longer afford the Hamptons—that's where the money meets the Atlantic.

Further, there were strong ties between New Haven and Long Island. Long Island, it should be remembered, was part of Connecticut then, not Dutch-controlled New Netherlands (New York). The same family names that can be found in New Haven can also be found in the Hamptons. Could the transient whalers have had family members already settled on the Cape in the 1640s? There is no proof, but the speculation level runs high.

It should be noted that offshore whaling in the 1640s is not what first comes to mind at the mention of whaling. Whaling, as we have come to picture it, consists of three- to five-year voyages aboard large whaling ships that pursued the right and sperm whales in all the oceans. Offshore whaling, as the name suggests, is done from 20-foot whale boats launched from the beach.

When a whale was spotted in the bay, the boats would be launched and the sails raised. When the crew neared the whale, the sail was lowered and a crew of eight rowed close to the whale. Offshore whaling now becomes similar to blue-water whaling. The captain harpooned the whale and the whale boat was towed by the whale until it tired. The crew would move the boat close to the whale, and the captain would drive a lance into the whale, trying to strike a vital organ. The angered whale would make another run until it tired again, spouted blood—pillars of fire—and died. The whale would be towed back to the beach where the blubber and baleen were processed.

The primary whale Long Islanders sought was the right whale, so named because it floated after it died. Tragically, partly because of offshore whaling, but mostly from blue-water whaling the right whale is now among the most endangered of the cetaceans. There aren't many left, particularly in the Atlantic.

Another distinction between blue-water whaling and offshore whaling is that blue-water whalers were exclusively whalers. Offshore whalers, when there were no local whales, held two other jobs: farming and whatever craft or skill they had. Offshore whalers couldn't quit their day job. This concludes the background on the Long Islanders that may have settled Portsmouth on the Jersey Cape between the 1640s through the 1690s.
The Long Island whalers who settled New England Town, formerly Portsmouth, in the 1680s had completed a three-leg odyssey. It began in England. From there they sailed to New England, moved to Long Island and finally relocated on the Jersey Cape in West Jersey. They settled north of New England Creek where they moored their boats.

One factor that greatly influenced settling the Cape was the restoration of Charles II to the throne. Chuck #2 promoted colonialization and expansionism including seizure of New Netherlands from the Dutch. He gave his brother James, Duke of York a patent to the former Dutch territories between the Hudson and Delaware rivers. Duke Jimmy rewarded his allies James Carteret and John Berkley with a patent for land that included the Cape.

Carteret name the province New Jersey after the Isle of Jersey where he had provided refuge for the exiled Stuarts during the English civil war. New Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey. The line separating the two ran northwest from about Tuckerton to Sussex County. The primary focus was encouraging relocation of the English population from New England and Long Island.

Disputes and tension developed among the different settlers in East Jersey resulting in a subsequent relocation to the Cape. East Jersey families involved in offshore whaling were among the first recorded settlers to move to the Cape in West Jersey. These families include Hewitt, Leonard, Edwards, Davis, Spicer, Leaming, Townsend, Whitlock, Richardson, Crawford, Dennis, Stillwell and Taylor. The same families can be traced earlier to the Hamptons. Some of their descendants are still living on the Cape.

Not satisfied with the profits in West Jersey, Carteret and Berkley sold their rights to two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge. Fenwick and Byllynge had a falling out, possibly because Fenwick couldn't pronounce Byllynge. Fenwick almost lost his financial interest. William Penn and other Quakers intervened to protect Fenwick's interests and promote new enterprises in West Jersey and provide religious refuges.

William Penn contributed to "The Laws, Concessions and Agreements of 1677". This document provided West Jersey with one of the most liberal constitutions in the British Empire. It guaranteed religious freedom, trial by jury, elected government and rights and privileges for freeholders. A freeholder is one who held office or landed estate free from any limitations as to inheritance rights or social class.

In 1681 Burlington, 100-miles north of the Cape, became the administrative and judicial center for West Jersey. A court, dominated by Quakers, passed local laws, dispensed justice, and provided moral and economic guidance. Burlington court records document that there was a community and government on the Cape between 1685 and 1688.

In 1687 Dr. Daniel Coxe acquired 22 shares in West Jersey. He offered freeholders a lease of 100 acres with the option in three years to buy the tract in fee simple acquiring absolute ownership of the land.

Cape May County History and Information

Records at the County Courthouse

See Also New Jersey Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in New Jersey

County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for New Jersey

County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

County Military Records

See Also Military Records in New Jersey

County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Arkansas Genealogical Addresses

County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in New Jersey

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History