Though it has no “brick-and-mortar” home, the CCGS holds regular programs at the Quaker Retirement Community. This relationship proved quite valuable during a recent Depression Era program when several of the home’s residents added personal commentary to the discussion. Another partner, the Centre County Historical Society, presented CCGS with an Historical Preservation Award for its work in restoring and re-dedicating a little known 1780-era cemetery.

While the society may not operate its own library, the area is still rich in genealogical research repositories. The Centre County Library’s Pennsylvania Room houses more than 3,000 volumes, original Centre County records, and historical newspapers. Genealogical study can also be conducted at the Pattee-Paterno Library on Penn State’s University Park campus, and in the State College branch facility of the Mormon Family History Library.

Ms. Stover reports that shows like Ancestry.com’s Who Do You Think You Are? have definitely sparked interest. “We got three new memberships the first week after the original show.” Social networking efforts on Facebook have also attracted new members.

Basic membership in the society is $18. This includes a quarterly newsletter and discounts on the society’s books and CDs. PayPal and checks are accepted.

On August 29th the society will be participating in the Annual Family Heritage Afternoon at the Grange Fair in Centre Hall. In September the society will once again conduct its Genealogy 101 classes. More information can be found at the Centre County Genealogical Society web site found at: www.centrecountygenealogy.org.

The amount of detail provided for each state is both astounding and of immeasurable benefit to genealogists. For each county there is not only a diagrammed boundary change progression, but also a textual description of county origins.

As genealogists know, it is often harder to determine where to begin searching than it is to identify what to search for. The voluminous information available on the Newberry Library’s web site resolves the problem of geographic uncertainty and should be considered a key, “go to” tool in every researcher’s toolbox.

We consider this an honor indeed. It also made us wonder what other valuable Pennsylvania genealogy columns are printed in newspapers across the state.

If you write a column — or know of someone who does — please let us know. Post a comment or send an email to:
PennsylvaniaResearch@gmail.com

The Pennsylvania Research Blog would like to offer these men and women the recognition they deserve.

The research room of ACHS is comfortably proportioned, comprehensive in its holdings, and extremely well organized.  Deed indexes and deed books (including unrecorded deeds) sit on its shelves — neighbors to church records, newspaper clippings, minutes of Quaker monthly meetings, Manor of Maske land records, poor house registers, and tax lists.  Estate records are indexed, and full files are available for review.  Because Adams County was carved from York, there are conveniently accessible resources from this parent county as well.

The family files and cemetery index are invaluable, time-saving assets to researchers.  Newspapers have been indexed, with information detailed on individual 3″ X 5″ cards.  More “contemporary” resources such as the delayed birth index covering the years 1893 to 1905 can also be found on-site.

The society is staffed by a combination of paid and volunteer staff.  During my visit I found both the volunteer receptionist and the society employee to be friendly and knowledgeable about the library’s contents.

ACHS hours are convenient.  It is open Thursday evenings from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Wednesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.

For a complete list of ACHS holdings (and to review policies regarding use of the facility), please visit their web site:  www.achs-pa.org.

Situated on the northeast border of Pennsylvania and snugged in between Wayne and Monroe Counties, Pike County was part of the region of the state once claimed by Connecticut.  It was officially formed in 1814.  Milford, the county seat, was incorporated as a borough in 1874.

PKHS was organized in 1930.  Gifford Pinchot, Pennsylvania governor from 1931 to 1935, was its first honorary president.  Today it is actually two entities:  the historical society itself, and a separate museum called The Columns.

The society presents monthly programs.  Its local history library houses 400 rare books, scrapbooks of local newspaper clippings, family histories, voter rolls, birth/marriage/death records, and more than 7,000 obituaries.  Individual memberships cost $15 which includes free admission to the library and museum for the member and a guest.

Recently, PKHS published Pike County (Arcadia Publishing, 2009) which, in addition to presenting interesting stories about the county’s history, is illustrated with more than 200 vintage photographs chronicling life in Pike County.

Of course, PKHS is also the home of the Lincoln Flag — a piece of history donated to the organization in 1954.   The story goes that Thomas Gourley, a stage manager at Ford’s Theatre, was in the same booth as Lincoln the night he was shot.  After Lincoln was removed from the theater he took the flag that had been used to cradle the wounded president’s head, and later gave it to his daughter Jeannie.  While a resident of Milford, she passed it on to her son who in turn donated it to the Pike County Historical Society.  The blood stains on the flag have been tested and results indicate the blood is human.  Additionally, it has been determined that the pattern of the stains is consistent with Lincoln’s injury.  Other factors such as the materials and known disposition of other flags from Ford’s Theatre serve to further confirm it authenticity.  The flag is on permanent display at The Columns Museum.

For more information or for hours of operation for the library and museum, contact PKHS at 570-296-8126, or email pikemuse@ptd.net.

Most importantly, we want to shine a spotlight on these critically valuable organizations — many run by volunteer effort alone — that still hold and preserve the best resources for genealogical research.

We hope readers find this information both interesting and useful.  And, we hope the societies we profile receive much deserved attention.

PhilaPlace Web Site Launches New Mapping Feature

March 26, 2010

PHILADELPHIA (March 9, 2010) PhilaPlace—an interactive Web site that connects stories to places across time in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods—announces an exciting new mapping feature to be unveiled March 26, 2010. On the PhilaPlace “Map” page at PhilaPlace.org, visitors can click on the new “Streets” tab and view enhanced historical maps that reveal in-depth patterns of change over time for specific blocks in South Philadelphia and Northern Liberties neighborhoods. Land-use and census data recreate details and activities on a street, house by house, business by business, for South 4th Street’s “Fabric Row;” the South 9th Street market; the neighborhoods destroyed by the construction of Interstate 95; and the historically African American settlement on Wallace Street in Northern Liberties once known as Paschall’s Alley.

“Through visual representations overlaid on the contemporary and historic maps, visitors can see with a glance how key areas at certain points in time changed in terms of ethnic make-up, land use, and occupation,” explained Joan Saverino, PhilaPlace project director.  For instance, the map for the blocks of South 9th Street shows the dramatic rise in Italian immigrant households in the decade between 1880 and 1900. The I-95 map recreates several square blocks of Front Street as they existed in 1963, before construction began on the Interstate. The entire I-95 swath displaced hundreds of families and destroyed homes including all but a few of the earliest wooden 18th-century houses in what is now Queen Village. “We will add more contextual information in the future…this is a pilot for what we would like to demonstrate on a larger scale, too,” said Saverino.

The maps were produced by one of PhilaPlace’s key partners, Amy Hillier, Assistant Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania, and undergraduate and graduate students who worked under her supervision.

The Web site, www.PhilaPlace.org, was launched last December by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The site weaves stories shared by ordinary people of all backgrounds with historical records to present an interpretive picture that captures the rich history, cultures, and architecture of our neighborhoods – past and present. The site uses a multimedia format, including interactive maps (both contemporary and historic), text, photographs, and audio and video clips. PhilaPlace features approximately 200 neighborhood stories told through text, audio and video.  Visitors to the site can contribute new content on an ongoing basis and have the ability to map their own stories in place and time. The site also includes K-12 lesson plans for teachers. More than a Web site, PhilaPlace engages diverse communities through local programs, teacher workshops, trolley tours, exhibits, and printed neighborhood guides.

The project is a collaborative endeavor undertaken by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in partnership with the City of Philadelphia Department of Records, the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, other institutions and community organizations, and members of the community who share their personal stories.

PhilaPlace has been made possible by generous support from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, through the Heritage Philadelphia Program; jointly by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State Partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Pennsylvania Department of Education; Southwest Airlines; the Connelly Foundation; Samuel S. Fels Fund; and the Walter J. Miller Foundation.

For additional information, please contact Joan Saverino, Project Director, at 215-732-6200, ext. 246 or jsaverino@hsp.org, or Melissa Mandell, Project Coordinator, at ext. 227 or mmandell@hsp.org.

Unlike many other states, Pennsylvania has no unified court system.  Effectively, this means that each county contrives its own way of doing things.  For instance, some records are organized using the Russell indexing system, some are not.  Some counties have placed their records in the care of the state archives, some have not.  Consequently, while our state archives itself is a well-run repository, the holdings when compared county-to-county can be quite inconsistent.

Not so at the New Jersey State Archives.  There are statewide marriage, birth and death, and even will indexes.  Clearly this varies somewhat by the counties’ dates of creation, however, the ability to track a family via one bookshelf or drawer of microfilm is foreign to anyone whose research has never expanded beyond Pennsylvania’s borders.  Of course there are many other resources at NJSA, not the least of which is their 8,000 rolls of newspaper microfilm, and all are equally well organized and incredibly easy to find and utilize.

Don’t misunderstand – the best repository in the world is of no value to the researcher who doesn’t know the historical context of his subject matter, or who is working from erroneous or poorly organized facts.  But a good researcher in a good repository such as the NJSA can accomplish an amazing amount of work in one or two days.

If you have New Jersey ancestors and would like a quote for on-site research at the NJSA, please email us at:

PennsylvaniaResearch@gmail.com

Drilling down into each entry one can also find names of spouse(s) and children.  Further capabilities include “view all available descendants listings” which shows all approved DAR applications with lineages documenting your ancestor.

Pertinent DAR applications can be ordered for $10 each.  Note that this excludes supplemental documents submitted with the application.

Also available for search are the DAR’s indexes to genealogical records.  Anyone who has spent time in a library has likely utilized these church, cemetery, court records and newspaper indexes – and will appreciate the comparative ease of this online capability.

To search the system, visit DAR.org, click on “DAR Library” and then “online research.”