ROOTS & BRANCHES

I well recall my first visit to the Pennsylvania State Archives.

It was sometime in the mid-1980s and I was relatively green to genealogy. I had been to a few libraries but not to a government archives.

At first I was put off by the amount of security the State Archives required—photo identification, assigned to a specific seat, couldn’t bring my coat or briefcase into the search room, etc.

Of course, what I didn’t know is that some archives had suffered losses of their one-of-a-kind documents from dishonest visitors in the past.

As more records were microfilmed and digitized, the State Archives was renovated to allow for a less stringent environment for use of those microfilms and digitized products on computer. Security was retained for the search room to which original documents were paged for patron use.

While I’m using past tense … this continues to be the case today—what will become past tense within the year is the current State Archives building in Harrisburg.

That’s because a new, state-of-the-art State Archives—after years of false starts, old plans and new plans—is under roof a few blocks away from the current 1964 building.

“We’re currently expecting to get the keys to the building in mid-July,” said Aaron McWilliams, head of the Reference Section for the Pennsylvania State Archives.

Preparations for the move have been underway for some time and currently the physical move is planned to start in mid-September and take at least a couple of months, McWilliams said.

This translates into a shutdown likely to begin in late August and extend until late in the year when the new site is up and running.

Among the things the State Archives has had going for it in the process of building and moving the new archives is that State Archivist David Carmicheal was previously the director of the Georgia Division of Archives & History, in which role he moved that state’s archives.

Carmicheal “knew all the pitfalls from the get-go and has helped us avoid as many as possible,” McWilliams said.

From a personal standpoint, I will be grateful for an updated building but will miss the days that the archives and the State Library of Pennsylvania were within easy walking distance.

The missions of the two institutions differ: While State Archives is the repository for preserving government records of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the State Library collects published information, particularly regarding Pennsylvania and by Pennsylvania authors. Information held at both sites are important to genealogists.

The address for the new State Archives will be 1681 N. Sixth Street in Harrisburg.