Resources - Genealogy of the Colgans of Philadelphia

Spreadsheets & Collections

To View or Download Our Collection of Colgan/McColgan Listings from the
Philadelphia City Directories, organized by year, visit the links below:

There are many advantages to having this information in these formats. Hundreds of these listings do not appear in search results on the sites that index this data (like Ancestry, MyHeritage, Archive.org, etc.) — primarily due to poor Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of these old publications that were printed on cheap paper.

Each entry has been manually checked, and any OCR errors fixed, so they have a far better, human–verified level of accuracy.
The directory and phone book clipping sets allow quick year–by–year browsing and side–by–side comparison, so it’s easy to view all Colgan or McColgan listings for the respective year, compare to find changes, and see exactly how each entry was published.
The spreadsheet allows search, as well as the ability to sort by: Surname Name spelling, First Name, Address, Occupation, Year of Publication, Raw Listing (unedited), Notes, Family ID Number (for confirmed family groups; a project still underway), and Year of Death. The Year of Death option is new, so it still requires a lot of work, but this column helps make sure you’re looking at the intended individual.
The occupation column is an option that isn’t consistently available in most online collections, and this data can be very helpful. The occupation listings have been cleaned up and standardized, so the wide variations in abbreviations used over the about 150 years of listings are easy to work with. The standardized occupations make it easy to understand entries (particularly spelling or abbreviation) that many modern researchers may not recognize – like “sgrmkr,” “alderm,” “clk,” “brkmn,” “carder,” “cutler,” or “burler.”
Many errors in the printed directories and phone books have been identified and cleaned up or flagged in the notes, which makes the spreadsheet far superior to the search results in Ancestry and other sites. The primary error clean–ups are: name misspellings, address errors, and incorrect information (such as when the directory workers recorded a wrong first name).

❇️ Excel Spreadsheet of Individual Colgan & McColgan Listings in Philadelphia City Directories from 1830 to 1925 (Plus 1930, 1935, 1940, 1947, 1950, 1953, and 1957)
Last Updated: 10 Dec 2024 (Still Undergoing Extensive Revisions)
COMING SOON: Addition of 1923, 1924, 1925, 1930, 1935, 1950 City Directory and Phone Book listings for Colgan & McColgan

❇️ Philadelphia City Birth Records Spreadsheet (1860–1915) (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan births)*
⚠️ NEW MAJOR UPDATE! Last Updated: 27 Mar 2025 (Still Undergoing Extensive Revisions – currently about 1/4 completed – more coming soon)
🔹 Excel (.xlsx format)
🔹 City recording of births began in the summer of 1860, and continued until the state assumed this responsibility in the 1910s
🔹 Known children that do not appear in search results from transcriptions will be listed later for manual review of records, and investigation of possible recording/transcription errors, which may reveal the correct record after investigation. Nearby counties will also be checked for those missing records of children supposedly born in Philadelphia.

❇️ FOLDER: Philadelphia City Birth Records Collection (1860–1915) (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan births)*
⚠️ NEW MAJOR UPDATE! Last Updated: 27 Mar 2025 (Still Undergoing Extensive Additions)
🔹 Images of the individual birth records from the City Archives for the Colgan/McColgan births on the above spreadsheet (currently about 1/4 completed – more coming soon)
🔹 Known children that do not appear in search results from transcriptions will be listed later for manual review of records, and investigation of possible recording/transcription errors, which may reveal the correct record after investigation. Nearby counties will also be checked for those missing records of children supposedly born in Philadelphia.

❇️ Philadelphia City Death Records Spreadsheet (1803–1915) (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan deaths)*
Last Updated: 25 Dec 2024 (Still Undergoing Extensive Revisions)

❇️ Archdiocese of Philadelphia baptisms spreadsheet (Abt. 1785 – 1921) (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan baptisms), including with mothers whose maiden name was Colgan / McColgan (FIRST DRAFT – currently about 1/4 completed – updates coming soon)
NOTES:
🔹 The spreadsheet contains corrections and extra information not available in the Catholic Heritage Archive or the official Archdiocese online record provider, FindMyPast
🔹 If you’d like to submit a baptism for the consolidated collection, please contact us. The individual MUST be deceased to be included, for privacy reasons. So if the baptism was less than a century ago, please include death information with the submission.
Last Updated: 22 Nov 2024

❇️ FOLDER: Colgan Philadelphia City Directory Listings – Cropped by Year (1830 – 1955) (Google Drive Folder) (🚧 More years coming soon.)
❇️ FOLDER: McColgan Philadelphia City Directory Listings – Cropped by Year (1803 – 1950) (Google Drive Folder) (🚧 More years coming soon.)

❇️ FOLDER: Colgan Camden, NJ City Directory Listings – Cropped by Year (Google Drive Folder) (Currently Available for 1900–1943. 🚧 More years coming soon.)
❇️ FOLDER: McColgan Camden, NJ City Directory Listings – Cropped by Year (Google Drive Folder) (Currently Available for 1900–1943. 🚧 More years coming soon.)

🚧 COMING SOON:

✴️ Interactive maps: local interactive maps of the Colgan families arriving in the greater Philadelphia area – from immigration to family growth and spread over two centuries

✴️ Interactive timelines: contextualizing and detailing the lives of the Colgan / McColgan around Philadelphia – from immigration through the mid-20th century.

✴️ Detailed individual profiles: covering the lives of key Colgans / McColgans in the area, particularly those with deep and interesting life stories.

✴️ Tool-tips and glossary: coming feature of this website, allowing a quick mouse-over of key terms, abbreviations, etc., to help readers quickly learn or refresh their knowledge on those items; and optionally click through for detailed information.

✴️ “F.A.N. Club” analysis: A genealogical research approach; stands for: Friends, Associates, and Neighbors. This method expands the search for information beyond an individual ancestor to include their broader social network. By examining the connections and interactions with those in an ancestor’s community or social sphere, we uncover details that may not be available in direct records about the ancestor themselves.

Using the F.A.N. method offers a richer, more contextual understanding of an ancestor’s life, including:

Geographical Origins: Tracking individuals who migrated together can help pinpoint an ancestor’s place of origin.
Family Connections: Sometimes friends, associates, or neighbors were actually family members. Identifying these links can uncover extended family networks.
Historical and Social Context: Studying the F.A.N. Club helps place ancestors within a broader societal framework, revealing their social class, economic status, and cultural background. This can also include affiliations with organizations, such as religious groups, fraternal orders, or political affiliations.
Hints and Clues to Build Evidence for Difficult Cases: Due to several catastrophic losses of many important Irish records over the past 200 years, this technique helps rebuild context and reveal clues.

✴️ Compiled spreadsheet of all known Colgan / McColgan street addresses from the region, beyond those in city directories. This includes addresses extracted from newspapers, legal documents (birth, marriage, death, last wills, estate documents, etc.), military files, papers such as letters stored in archives, and papers from private collections. They are flagged with ID numbers to identify the individual and their immediate family.

✴️ Patients, Indigents, Orphans and Inmates spreadsheet: All known Colgans / McColgans in institutions for the ill, disabled, poor, and orphaned – from almshouses to maternity hospitals and asylums. Government and private (charity) institutions.

Hospitalizations in Philadelphia spreadsheet: All known Colgan / McColgan admissions and treatment at Philadelphia hospitals, covering all known admission records and newspaper reports of admissions/treatment at an area hospital. Includes those who were discharged alive, and the condition or injury (when available). This is particularly helpful at tracking serious conditions (tuberculosis, scarlet fever, small pox, cholera, postpartum illness or death such as puerperal fever, etc.) and major accidents/injuries.

✴️ Poor aid records: All known Colgans / McColgans who received aid for the poor, such as coal, food, and other assistance.

✴️ Criminal Inmates spreadsheet: All known Colgans / McColgans in correctional institutions, either for criminal convictions or “voluntary” confinement for vagrancy.

✴️ Veterans spreadsheet: All known Colgans / McColgans who had documented military service.

✴️ Immigrant arrivals: All known Colgans / McColgans who immigrated to the area

✴️ Naturalizations spreadsheet: All known Colgan / McColgan immigrants who naturalized as U.S. citizens

✴️ Archdiocese of Philadelphia marriages spreadsheet (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan marriages)

✴️ Ireland – Roman Catholic baptisms spreadsheet (Abt. 1800 – 1860) (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan baptisms), including with mothers whose maiden name was Colgan / McColgan, when maiden name is available

✴️ Greater Philadelphia Area Birth Records Spreadsheet (1906–1915) from Pennsylvania state birth certificates (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan births)*

✴️ Pennsylvania birth index entries (Colgan / McColgan) for the years for which full birth records are not yet available (1916-1919).

✴️ Greater Philadelphia Area Marriage Records Spreadsheet (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan marriages)

✴️ Greater Philadelphia Area Death Records Spreadsheet (1803–1915) from Pennsylvania state death certificates (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan deaths)*

✴️ Greater Philadelphia Area Burials Spreadsheet (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan deaths)*

✴️ City Directory and Phone Book clippings collections:

Bucks County, PA City Directory and Phone Book Listings**
Chester County, PA City Directory and Phone Book Listings**
Delaware County, PA City Directory and Phone Book Listings**
Montgomery County, PA City Directory and Phone Book Listings**
Trenton, NJ City Directory and Phone Book Listings**
Wilmington, DE City Directory and Phone Book Listings**

✴️ Likely expansion: City Directory / Phone Book clippings, and other Colgan / McColgan records of those families who spread into areas along the Reading Railroad (such as Reading, Berks County and Pottsville, Schuylkill County at the end of the railroad line)

✴️ Compiled list of known holdings in archives (particularly small or local archives) related to, or mentioning, local Colgans and McColgans

✴️ Greater Philadelphia Area Real Estate Spreadsheet (ALL Known Colgan / McColgan real estate ownership)

✴️ News clippings collections

✴️ Ad clippings from Colgan/McColgan-owned businesses

* Including all known Colgan / McColgan maiden name individuals, who died under a married name

** Those who marry into another name will be added, when possible

🚧 COMING SOON:

Links