ROOTS & BRANCHES

It’s not uncommon that I find ideas for columns either at or through publications of the Lebanon County Historical Society.

And that’s only somewhat fitting because that society’s archives is the first place I researched when I started doing genealogy back in the mid-1980s. At the time, I lived in Harrisburg and had off Sundays and Mondays, which matched well with the hours of the library and archives at the time.

Among the people I met was Michael Strauss, a military re-enactor and “missing heirs” researcher of some note, and little did either of us think we’d “grow up” into the professional genealogy world.

In a recent issue of the society’s publication “Seeds of History,” society archivist/librarian Bruce D. Bomberger explained in an article headlined “Steeped in History: Rare Historical Documents Reflect Patterns of Modern Voting” that voting and election documents from Heidelberg Township dated 1799 had been acquired.

“We purchased it on auction,” Bomberger said. “There is a very large group of documents from Schaefferstown that had been kept intact by members of the Rex and Schaeffer families for generations, but recently is being auctioned off.”

Something that continually fascinates me about genealogy is that no matter how long you’ve searched and how long the odds may be about finding new information … there’s always the possibility of a record group you haven’t yet seen. The worst thing one can do, in my estimation, is to assume that a particular set of documents would not be extant.

Bomberger’s article especially made “my antennae go up” because in the Heidelberg Township of the time—which would have included the modern-day townships of Heidelberg, Millcreek and much of Jackson, as well as the borough of Myerstown—lived one of my ancestors, a man named Peter Daub born about 1770.

This Peter Daub is recorded in censuses and tax lists for Heidelberg Township throughout the first decade of the 1800s.

While it seems likely is resided there at the time of the 1799 election, Bomberger confirmed that his name does not appear as either an eligible or actual voter.

A possible reason for this that Peter’s occupation is listed as a carpenter or joiner and as owning either no or minimal land.

Non-landowning tradesmen of the time likely would have been ineligible to vote.

Even without these lists producing an ancestor’s name on them, I’m of the opinion that they are an excellent acquisition for the society, including the “stroke mark” tallies from that year’s Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, in which the ultimate winner Thomas McKean outpolled James Ross by a count of 108 to 42 in Heidelberg Township.