ROOTS & BRANCHES

I’ve known Glenn Riegel, who has been involved in photography in every angle from photo-journalism to teaching to commercial advertising, basically forever.

His photos of birds—and just about everything else—have fascinated me for years and I’ve had growing admiration for all the awards he wins for those images.

We grew up in the same church, Bern Reformed United Church of Christ, in Berks County and had mothers who were good friends through thick and thin.

Riegel recently said he was interested in tracking down his grandmother’s former home and store property in the tiny village of Mount Pleasant in Penn Township, Berks County. He believes the house and store was built by his third-great-grandparents Elias and Elizabeth Obold, who gave the village its original name of (wait for it!) Obold.

While Riegel logically thought he’d start with the county Recorder of Deeds office, I recommended a different approach available when you know the exact modern-day location and/or address of the place you’re trying to find—as opposed to just knowing the municipality of the ancestor from a tax list or census—I suggested that he go to the Berks County of Berks Assessment Office’s parcel viewer at the URL, https://gis.co.berks.pa.us/parcelviewer/

This map can be zoomed to the level of showing off the present-day parcel boundaries and I knew he’d be able to navigate to the Mount Pleasant area and click on the parcel for the property or properties for which he was looking.

Clicking on the parcel in turn gives “Parcel Assessment Information” with the current owner’s name and address of the parcel, and another click gets you a “Parcel Report,” that will bring up a document that includes various info, including “Recorded Documents,” which will show the last transaction recorded for the property, including reference needed to start looking at a deed chain on the Berks Recorder of Deeds site.

While most every Pennsylvania county now has its records online, Berks was a pioneer under Frederick Sheeler, who has been the Berks recorder for most of the last 20 years.

At the Berks Recorder of Deeds site, you can create a free log-in or you can search their records online as a guest at the URL,  https://www.berkspa.gov/departments/recorder-of-deeds

From the menu at the URL above, you choose “Search Public Records” and from that screen you can search a variety of ways based on the information you have on the Parcel Report, leading you to calling up the actual deed in a viewer. In most cases, part of the text of the deed you’re viewing will give you references to the previous transaction, allowing you to work back through the “deed chain.”

Riegel’s relatives also had properties that were flooded by the Blue Marsh Lake and Dam project back in the 1970s. That search will be a little more complicated since obviously what’s under the lake is no longer on any tax parcel maps. But there are plenty of other sources that can be leveraged!