ROOTS & BRANCHES

Just a couple of weeks ago “Roots & Branches” shared some musings from relative genealogical newbie Laura Wolf. She’s been perusing the older columns and as someone with a background in social science research, she has loads of questions that I wish more budding family historians would ask (like how to better engage students and …

I’ve heard the saying “you learn something new every day”—and on the day of writing this installment of the “Roots & Branches” column, that was supplied by Jeffrey D. Sherbondy of the Sherbondy Family Association. Sherbondy describes himself as an experienced family researcher and publisher and his initial inquiry bore that out—he’s obviously grabbed more …

The conversation began about a month ago when Laura Wolf emailed me with some welcome words of praise for my book The Family Tree Historical Newspapers Guide.“I learned a lot from your book and wanted to take a moment to thank you,” Wolf wrote. “The book was packed with information, but yet very accessible and …

Who doesn’t like a birthday? OK, I’ll admit as the number of my birthdays has stacked up into a seventh decade, I get a little bit less enamored with all-out celebrations. But when it comes to institutions, I think we’d all agree that “the more, the merrier” is a great way of looking at it. …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” column focused on so-called “union churches.” I defined this phenomenon as “Two or more congregations of different religious denominations sharing ownership of a church building.” It was often found in the more rural areas of the mid-Atlantic among the mainstream Lutheran and Reformed denominations of the German-speaking people. While these …

There are few terms applicable to Pennsylvania German genealogy that tend to confuse beginner family historians as much as “union churches.” For example: “What’s that—a church that favored the North in the Civil War?” Well, no. My best shot at a definition would be “Two or more congregations of different religious denominations sharing ownership of …

When I recently researched and recorded a presentation on the 1798 U.S. Direct Tax, nicknamed the “Window Tax” because in part the assessment of that tax was based on glass windows in homes, it took me back to the days when I was researching the Daub family of Lebanon County. Immigrant Johan Daub lived in …

More than a dozen years ago, I had the experience of helping coordinate (and some weeks even teach) an adult Sunday school class at the church I formerly attended. I clearly recall one unit that I personally taught on the biblical book of Acts, the curriculum for which used some clever phrasing about accounting for …

As this column is published, your “Roots & Branches” columnist will be speaking for the Cecil County Public Library system’s Genealogy Symposium on “What’s Hot and What’s Not in 21st Century Genealogy.” It’s a bit of a lofty topic, but as faithful readers well know: I’m never short of opinions on such things. There’s no …

In the last 20-something years, it’s been a rare genealogy event at which I haven’t had some sort of extra role. I’ve chaired a few major conferences. I’ve spoken at loads more. Sometimes I’ve been a vendor. And other times I’ve been the official representative of one or another organization. But for last weekend’s hybrid …