ROOTS & BRANCHES

When I get a chance to read the publications of the various genealogy groups of which I am a member, it’s common to find out new information.

After all, the further I go on in life, the better idea I have on how relatively little I know!

A couple of this year’s issues of the Lebanon County Historical Society’s “Seeds of History” newsletter were really notable in this regard.

In the July/August/September issue, genealogist and archives volunteer Susan Zabolotny profiled Miss Amanda Light (1845-1938), a long-lived citizen from one of the county’s founding families.

As a matter of fact, Amanda outlived all of her eight siblings, even though many of them reached extended ages themselves.

Zabolotny used a variety of sources, including church and cemetery records, newspapers and courthouse abstracts to paint the picture of a woman who was both reclusive and wealthy, perhaps owning 30 houses in the city of Lebanon.

At one point she caused a fire in her house but refused to allow firefighters in her doorway (they broke through the window to save her anyway).

“The town’s people would have called her a ‘character,’” Zabolotny writes.

In the October/November/December issue of “Seeds,” Adam T. Bentz, the society’s archivist and librarian, introduces work done by two recent college interns.

Julia Wiker transcribed handwritten notes of the Rev. J.G. Francis about the Union Canal in Lebanon County. High-resolution scans of this unpublished manuscript were furnished by the Elizabethtown College Archives (of which Francis is considered a founder).

Wiker noted that Francis often went on “strolls” on which he would write down the details of everything he saw and also simply knocked on doors around town to see if they could tell him anything about the canal, leading to many oral histories.

She also worked with a number of the Lebanon society’s German-language document collections, including translating newspaper headlines and titles of pamphlets and almanacs.

But from a genealogist’s standpoint, it was newsletter’s report by Abigail Wenger Meyer on her internship that was the highlight: She transcribed and translated almost a century of records (mid-1700s to mid-1800s) from what was then Hill Reformed Church in North Annville Township that had previously been lost to history, including both baptisms and financial reports!

We always need to be skeptical when we encounter gaps in record books. While certainly there has been loss over the years – including church registers that might never have been kept to begin with! – it’s situations like this that gives hope … and always beckons me to look in the “dark corners” of every repository for records that no one knows about (in this case, the hidden Hill record book was found between volumes of county government records).

The newsletter indicates the society is considering publications from the work of Wiker and Meyer – I hope they happen!

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Lebanon County Historical Society, 924 Cumberland St., Lebanon, PA 17042; website URL, www.LCHSociety.org