Gilbert Cope (August 17, 1840 – December 17, 1928) was an American historian and genealogist who authored numerous publications on the history and prominent families of Chester County, Pennsylvania.

His father- a strict disciplinarian in contrast to his kindly mother- was a wealthy Quaker farmer of English descent, whose paternal ancestor, Oliver Cope, was one of William Penn's First Purchasers, settling in the region in 1683 having previously been a tailor in Wiltshire.

When his father died, Gilbert sold the farm and moved to West Chester, where he built a new house at 532 North Church Street on the occasion of his marriage in 1880.

He accrued extensive genealogical and historical collections, which he shelved in wooden cabinets of his own design or stored in a fireproof vault he built in his private library.

He preserved most of Chester County's archives and Quaker meeting records, gathering and binding thousands of loose papers at his own expense.

[5] Cope's fellow historian of southeastern Pennsylvania, Albert Cook Myers, described him as "pleasant and sociable in his quiet, unobtrusive way," albeit somewhat pedantic and prone to interrogate new acquaintances about their ancestry.