GSP NEWSLETTER Finding Your Pennsylvania Ancestors
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September 2020 Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania Newsletter GSP NEWSLETTER Finding Your Pennsylvania Ancestors Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania Newsletter In this issue MESSAGE FROM GSP’S PRESIDENT • Library update.…..…………2 Working Hard Behind the Scenes • Did You Know? …………….2 The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (GSP) is currently • First Families Corner………3 working on the Sharla Solt Kistler Collection, which was • County Spotlight: donated to GSP by Mrs. Sharla Solt Kistler. Mrs. Kistler was an Columbia……………………4 avid genealogist with a vast collection of books and records reflecting her years of research. She donated her collection to • GSP members’ Civil War GSP so that her work and passion could be shared. ancestors…………….….…..5 • Q&A: DNA ..…………………9 The collection represents Mrs. Kistler’s many years of research • Tell Us About It………….…10 on her ancestors, largely in the Lehigh Valley area of Eastern Pennsylvania. It includes her personal research and • PGM Excerpt: Identifying correspondence. Available are numerous transcriptions of 19th-century photographs church and cemetery records from Berks, Schuylkill, Lehigh, ………………………………11 and Northampton counties, as well as numerous books. Pennsylvanians of German ancestry are well represented in Update about GSP this collection. Volunteers are cataloging the collection and hoping to create Although our office is not yet finding aids for researchers to use both on site and online. open to visitors, staff is here on Monday, Tuesday, and Even though GSP’s library is still closed to visitors because of Thursday from 10 am to 3 pm the pandemic, volunteers are hard at work on this, as well as and can respond to your other projects. We have been staggering the days and times phone calls to 267.686.2297. our volunteers come into the office, in adherence with social Our website is open 24/7 at distancing guidelines. We will keep you updated as we make genpa.org. The GSP team is progress with these new and exciting collections! monitoring emails and membership status (expirations, renewals, etc.) —Nancy Janyszeski, President and will be updating members about plans for reopening as soon as possible. The GSP newsletters can be printed for those who like Some of us have participated a print publication. in virtual meetings using different software options. See GSP Store for publications and specials. GSP has signed up with Previous Newsletters Zoom to host meetings, and we are excited about the prospect of virtual events. GSP Newsletter - September 2020 Copyright 2020 GSP !1 September 2020 Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania Newsletter Did You Know? Library Update Death certificates were instituted in Pennsylvania in January 1906. We’ve been busy at GSP’s library, reviewing and updating our General compliance was reached catalog, adding new books (thanks to several donors), and in 1915. getting things ready for when the office opens. What’s pending: Carol Sheaffer left her 250+ genealogy books to the society, 1969-Present: Order death and we’re anticipating adding them to our collection shortly. certificates at Vitalcheck. https:// There are some wonderful gems, so we’ll be letting you know www.vitalchek.com/ about them in an upcoming newsletter. order_main.aspx? eventtype=DEATH Also available at Vitalcheck, 1906- Additions to the GSP Library present certified copies We’ve just added some books to the library. Many were donated by our members, which we greatly appreciate. 1906-1969 • Palatine Mennonite Census Lists, 1664-1793 My Heritage (1906-1964) • Marriages and Deaths of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Ancestry (1906-1967) 1685-1800 PA Archives (1906-1969) • Bernese Anabaptists • They Came in Ships, 2nd ed. 1893-1905: Deaths were recorded • Thirty Thousand Names of Germans, Swiss, Dutch, French in county courthouses by the and Other Immigrants in Orphans Court • Pennsylvania from 1727 to 1776 http://www.pacourts.us/courts/ • Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol. 1 courts-of-common-pleas/orphans- • Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol. 2 court-clerks • Early Lutheran Baptisms and Marriages in Southeastern Pennsylvania: The Records of Rev. John Casper Stoever from Pennsylvania Mortality 1730 to 1779 Schedules 1850-1880 • Lehigh County Tombstone Abstracts of Persons Born Prior to https://www.familysearch.org/ 1800 from 64 Cemeteries within the Limits of Lehigh County, search/collection/3512181 Pennsylvania • Old Goshenhoppen Cemetery, Upper Salford Township, Pennsylvania, U.S., Deaths, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania 1852-1854 • A History of the Goshenhoppen Reformed Charge, https://www.ancestry.com/search/ Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (1727-1819) collections/2487/ • Denizations and Naturalizations in the British Colonies in Database of death records and America, 1607-1775 index for 49 counties: Adams, • Philadelphia: Patricians and Philistines, 1900-1950 Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, • St. Stephen's Catholic Cemetery in the Nicetown Section of Bedford, Berks, Bradford, Bucks, Philadelphia, PA, 2nd ed. Butler, Cambria, Carbon, Centre, Chester, Clearfield, Columbia, Family history books Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, • A History of the Markey Family, 1750-1961 Elk, Franklin, Greene, Huntingdon, • A History of the Markey Family, 1961-1979 (supplement) Indiana, Juniata, Lancaster, Law- • Fergus Moorhead (1742-1822), Pioneer: Documentary History rence, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, • The Oberholtzer Story McKean, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, • Ortner: The History of Genealogy of the Immigrant Casimir Montgomery, Montour, Northamp- Ortner ton, Northumberland, Perry, Schuylkill, Somerset, Susque- hanna, Tioga, Union, Venango, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Westmoreland, York Where else can you look? Family bibles, burial records, church records, newspapers (obituaries), probate records (wills), tax records GSP Newsletter - September 2020 Copyright 2020 GSP !2 September 2020 Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania Newsletter FIRST FAMILIES CORNER Many of us have seen old family Bibles and wedding belong to? Who made the copy in the new Bible? photos in antique stores and thrift shops. We wonder Did the transcriber do any editing, or add anything? why there was no one who wanted to keep them. For example, I can’t see someone writing “children There are even online sites that attempt to reunite of the above” at the birth of the first child, but I these items with family members. suppose it’s possible. Not long ago, someone emailed scans of a marriage Since Joel & Elizabeth’s son Edward was the only certificate from 1846 to my cousin John, along with child who married, it is possible that the new Bible birth, marriage, and death pages from a Bible that was copied from the old family Bible and given to seemed to belong to that same couple. The bride’s him. The only pieces of evidence for this theory are name was Elizabeth Ann Nelson. John had posted the entries for Joel’s death and Edward’s marriage. tombstone photos for this family at findagrave.com. Another possibility is that the original Bible was re- He no longer has the email that accompanied the copied sometime before Edward’s marriage and the scans, but he remembers that the man said these new one kept by Elizabeth, who then added her were “loose papers” that he had found while son’s marriage and her own husband’s death date. cleaning out his aunt’s belongings. The aunt’s Elizabeth herself died in 1908; this death is not identity is unknown. Whoever this man was, recorded in the Bible. obviously working overtime to clean out a house or clean up an estate, we are so grateful that he took Edward himself had no children who survived the time to send copies to someone who just might infancy. His wife had a son Charles Willard be interested in them. Matthews by an earlier marriage. Willard often went by the surname Allen, as did his children, seemingly Elizabeth Ann Nelson Allen was the daughter of my alternating the two surnames almost at will. Willard third great grandparents, Elisha Nelson and Janet had two daughters but only one of them married. He Errickson. The information on these Bible pages also had a son Charles Willard Allen Jr. Willard Sr included middle names, birth places, and some died in 1940. We have very little information for exact birth and death dates that we had not Willard Jr. previously discovered. Carefully written out were the names of Joel Roger Allen and Elizabeth Ann The point of this story is that Bibles, full of Nelson, along with their birth places and dates. Then genealogical information, are often sold off or was written “children of the above” with five names. discarded because the family line that they are Again, there were first, middle, last names with exact tracing has faded out. The people who are cleaning birth places and dates. This was all in the same out the house, or downsizing, have no interest in handwriting and ink, which led me to believe that this them and often have no real idea how they was not the original family Bible, but rather a copy. themselves acquired the Bible. Distant relatives The death page was in the same handwriting, three would cherish them but don’t know that they exist. of the children and then in a different hand, the What an unexpected blessing it is when a total death of Joel himself in 1898. We already knew that stranger takes the time to send the Bible, or at least most of the children had died unmarried. The scans of the important information, to someone who marriage page had the marriage of Joel and will cherish it. If you find yourself in this position, Elizabeth in that familiar handwriting; the only other may I add one piece of advice: if the Bible has a marriage listed was for their oldest son Edward, in dedication page containing the name of the owner, 1887. The handwriting for that marriage seems to or a publication date page, a scan of that information match that of Joel’s death entry. could help the recipient to attribute the information correctly.