ROOTS & BRANCHES

Having been raised a “church person” in a mainstream Protestant congregations in the mid-20^th century, I don’t need convincing that religious beliefs can be crucial to an individual’s sense of community.

So learning about an upcoming online program from the Pennsylvania State Archives titled “Preserving Your Congregation’s History,” to be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. April 28, immediately caught my interest.

The event is part of the Archives’ Community History Dialog series and is designed to inspire and help social communities think about how they can collect and preserve their own history. The event is free but requires registration.

Speakers for the event are Margaret Jerrido of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church (who is the retired director of Temple University’s Urban Archives), Carol Smith of the historic Christ Church in Philadelphia, and Barry Rudel of Beth Sholom Synagogue of Johnstown.

Many communities are brought together by shared religious views, beliefs and experiences. Preserving the stories of congregations—whether they are newly formed or have gathered for generations—is critical to understanding that community’s history and the larger history we all share.

Jerrido, Smith and Rudel will give case studies of how their religious communities have been working to preserve the records and stories of their congregations and how your worship community might preserve its own history.

Your “Roots & Branches” columnist will admit to a very specific agenda when it comes to preservation of religious records.

For many of the Pennsylvania German church records I use, access to admittedly fragile original records is barred with excuse like “Oh, there’s a transcript available” or “Well, they’ve been translated and you can use that.”

I’ve seen translations by the best people … and there are always mistakes when interpreting handwritten records. My mantra: Please digitize all your records and make sure those digital products are available to genealogists and historians!

The Pennsylvania State Archives started this Community History Dialog series in 2020 to gather community groups, archivists, and others to share their own experiences collecting and preserving their community’s stories and offer guidance. These discussions are helpful to groups just beginning to preserve their history or those who have significant collections already but are seeking next steps.

A social community is a group of people who share some common characteristic, attitude, interest, or goals and who consider themselves to be a community. Communities might be connected by ethnic or cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation or gender identity, religious beliefs, or other shared experiences, and can be represented by a formal organization, or a community’s members can be more loosely connected. The Community History Dialog series helps such communities identify and preserve their history. 

This series is also evidence of what hard work people from organizations that have been closed during the COVID-19 Pandemic have done to keep the flame of history alive during socially distant times.

Click here to register or copy and paste this link in your browser: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsce-qpjIsHNQXmICQI2ZIJD5IxMS46GeQ

Recordings of previous Community History Dialog events and additional resources for community history projects can be found here: https://www.phmc.pa.gov/Archives/News-Programs/CHD/Pages/default.aspx