ROOTS & BRANCHES

I first encountered the difference between mere stories and actual history from the late Charles H. Glatfelter, when I read his classic study of early mainstream Lutheran and Reformed ministers and congregations titled Pastors and People, which documented the beginnings of individual 18th century churches.Glatfelter took a pretty sharp knife to congregations that relies solely …

The idea of the Pennsylvania Dutch / Pennsylvania German identity is something of more than passing interest to me.So when I heard that Kutztown University’s Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center was having an event on Nov. 14–15 that it dubbed “Pennsylvania German Futures,” I knew I wanted to attend (as it turned out, I had …

When the email came in from Michael Braunger, my expectations of an interesting conversation were somewhat limited. “I researched my surname back to my fifteeenth-great-grandfather (born late 1300s), who may have been the first surnamed ancestor,” Braunger wrote. That piqued my interest, but a lot of people have theories that aren’t backed up by documents; …

I’ve been in touch with Greg Biehl ever since I happened to bump into him when he visited the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania a few years ago during my time as interim executive director there. It didn’t take much conversation then for us to realize we were distant cousins, both descendants of a Peter Biehl …

Richard K. Miller of Provo, Utah, developed genealogy research software Goldie May to help automate the keeping of a research log, and you may recall he wowed your “Roots & Branches” columnist a “coupla three” years ago at a National Genealogical Society conference. Well, I had the opportunity to catch up with Miller last month …