«The Hitchner Family of South Jersey

The Hitchner Family of South Jersey: Descendants of Hans Jacob Itschner/Hitchner and Magdalena Lotholtz by Gail Phero; 2024; 3657 pp.; index; PDF download

The Gloucester County Historical Society has published a unique 3,657-page genealogy book entitled The Hitchner Family of South Jersey that traces a vast family tree. The title is something of a misnomer because, as documented in the book, since its arrival in this country in the early 1700s, the family's story came to involve 80,000 individuals, who ultimately spread into every state as well as other countries.

The book was authored by Gail Phero of Elmer, in Salem County New Jersey, who spent 20 years researching the subject.

The book's Adobe pdf format has the benefit of having its own internal search system that makes it easy to browse through the 25-megabyte document with relative ease.

As an option, a stand-alone version the Hitchner book’s 134-page Index to Names can be downloaded for free from this website link. The Index to Names enables readers to look up individual or family names of interest to see if they appear in the full Hitchner book.

Along with its incredible size, The Hitchner Family of South Jersey is remarkably different from other family tree documents in its inclusion of voluminous amounts historical detail and context that bring its subjects to life.

"It is most unusual to see a genealogy with such detailed transcriptions from original sources,” said Barbara Price, Librarian of the Gloucester County Historical Society Library who provided technical assistance and encouragement to Phero throughout the long project. " In my experience, this book is definitely one of the most thorough of its kind."