ROOTS & BRANCHES

Before I was a genealogist, I was exposed to just a little bit of my genealogy – enough, I suppose, that when the time came in my 20s that I decided to tackle it, I was primed and ready to take things further. There were two main sources for this little bit of genealogy. My …

Despite us being in a season of joy, I’m going to talk about some county courthouses in Pennsylvania that do some awfully genealogist-unfriendly things. First, I want to make clear that there are many courthouse officials and officers who take their roles as custodians of public records very seriously and deserve to be commended (I’ve …

We’ve been talking about passenger arrival lists for several weeks here at “Roots & Branches,” specifically those that the Federal government mandated to be kept starting 1820 and therefore are an outstanding set of records for those researching immigrants who came to America in the 19th and 20th centuries. But as I observed in the …

We’ve been taking about passenger arrival lists for the last few weeks in “Roots & Branches” and this fascinating record group has many angles to it. Column reader Michael Lilla of Hollidaysburg e-mailed in a question just as the series was starting. “What happens to passengers who die on board the ship?” he asked. He …