ROOTS & BRANCHES

A few years into my genealogical journey that began 30-something years ago, I had the false confidence of the average 20-something of thinking that I probably had a pretty handle on genealogical and historical knowledge.

It’s only now from my 50-something perspective that I finally feel as if I’m getting a better handle on how much I don’t know.

Nothing drilled that home to me better than having the opportunity earlier this month to share in a bus tour and genealogy conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University.

The theme of the tour and conference was “Sacred Landscapes” and focused on tombstones, church buildings and German-language Bibles as talismanic symbols of Pennsylvania German culture.

My takeaways from these events will be filling several columns in the next few months – the program was that good! – but let’s start with quick hits on a few of the more significant ones.

A real mind-blower was evidence that brown sandstone grave markers – many of which appear to have no inscriptions due to weathering – instead really had no carved inscriptions because words were painted on them, according to Michael Emery, one of the conference speakers who works at the Landis Valley Farm Museum in Lancaster County.

The Old Zion Reformed Church (also known as the “White Oak congregation” or Reyer’s Church) in Elizabeth Township, Lancaster County, was one of the tour stops. Zion is a brick “meetinghouse style” church building built 1813 and among its features are graffiti in the balcony from “naughty boys” in the congregation who signed and dated the church wall!

Finally, Patrick Donmoyer, director of the heritage center, talked about German-language Bibles published in America, a project he inherited from his late mentor Don Yoder, the godfather of so many things Pennsylvania Dutch. Yoder believed that the translation of the Bible into the languages of the people – particularly Martin Luther’s translation into high German – was crucial to bringing about the individualism of the modern world.

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Coming up on Oct 14, your “Roots & Branches” columnist will share the speaking stage with Sharon Cook MacInnes at the fall conference of the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society at Wyndham Garden Hotel in York.

MacInnes will present “Keystone Records in the Keystone State” and “Migration Patterns of Germans in America.” She’s a retired educator, a land records expert and National Genealogical Society board member in addition to having the Certified Genealogist credential.

I will lecture on “Pioneers & Colonists: Historical Background of Germans in Eastern Europe” and “Germany to America: 18th Century Odyssey”

On Oct. 13, Kenneth Heger will present a workshop on using the assets of the society’s website to research Alsace-Lorraine, the Bavarian Palatinate and Hesse-Darmstadt.

For further information and registration flier, see the society website at the URL, magsgen.com.