Where are the best sites to do genealogical research in southeastern Pennsylvania?

Question

The family I am interested in is known to have lived in Chester County, with branches in Philadelphia, as well as Lancaster, Centre, and Dauphin Counties, possibly Lebanon, Franklin, and other counties as well.

Some of the family was Quaker.

Some of the family was African American.

The period I am interested in is 1750-1850

Answer 1

Perhaps, some of the sites below will be of assistance?

http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.no...

http://www.genealogy.com/ifa/co_cd196.ht...

http://genforum.genealogy.com/pa/?cj=1&s...

http://genforum.genealogy.com/pa/countie...

Answer 2

Quakers have always kept very detailed records of membership, transfers, marriages, etc., many of which have been preserved on microfilm or in other forms today.  My starting place would probably be Philadelphia Yearly Meeting: http://www.pym.org/pm/historic.php  

If you know which towns your Quaker relatives lived in, you can also contact the meetings in those towns (if they're still around -- and most of them are) to find out what records still exist and how you can access them.  The PYM site can provide you a list of local monthly meetings and contact info.

The Chester County Archives & Records Service seems like another good place to look: http://dsf.chesco.org/archives/site/defa...

and I'm sure the other counties have their own versions of such an office.

I hope you find what you're searching for. :-)