ROOTS & BRANCHES

I wrote some weeks ago in “Roots & Branches” on the upcoming online program from the Pennsylvania State Archives titled “Preserving Your Congregation’s History.”

The program, part of the Archives’ Community History Dialog series inspire a variety of social communities to collect and preserve their own history, had more than a hundred attendees eager to learn.

Margaret Jerrido of Mother Bethel A.M.E. in Philadelphia, Carol Smith of the historic Christ Church in Philadelphia, and Barry Rudel of Beth Sholom Synagogue of Johnstown gave presentations and then answered questions.

Jerrido, Smith and Rudel all related case studies about how their religious communities have been working to preserve the records and stories of their congregations and how other worship communities might preserve their own history.

I’ll freely admit I had 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.”

But 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!

It was good to see affirmation from the panelists on this topic, and Smith mentioned the “Philadelphia Congregations Early Records” project, which will offer more than 41,000 pages of records from Philadelphia’s oldest congregations when complete.

Slated to be included will be connections to the archives of Christ Church, St. George’s Methodist Church, Gloria Dei, Mikveh Israel, African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, Episcopal Dioceses Archives, Presbyterian Historical Society, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, and American Baptist Historical Society.

Of special significance is that all materials are to be digitized, including minutes and account books and well birth, marriage, death, and burial registers. This project is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project website’s URL is https://philadelphiacongregations.org/records.

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.

Organizations such as the Pennsylvania State Archives have been closed to public access during the past year due to COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions but crafting such a relevant and helpful program shows their work has continued unbated.