ROOTS & BRANCHES

The Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society celebrated its 50^th anniversary last month with a two-day hybrid conference in Pittsburgh.

Capping off the event was a celebratory dinner that included the announcement that the society has scanned and published online the Allegheny County death registers from 1893–1905 including over 28,500 names across more than a hundred municipalities.   

“A team volunteered many hours for over a year scanning and checking these records in partnership with Allegheny County. We are delighted to offer this resource to the general public and to do so as WPGS celebrates its 50th year,” said Pamela Israel, the outgoing president of WPGS, who also serves as archives chair for the group. “Genealogists know that finding an official death record often leads to priceless facts or at least clues in understanding an ancestor’s past. Sometimes a death record is that breakthrough record that helps people step back another generation in their research.”

These death registers represent a short, but crucial period and a bridge to when Pennsylvania began requiring death certificates in 1906. The records had not previously been microfilmed.

 WPGS has long worked closely with Allegheny County, and the Records Management Team has been instrumental in facilitating this project. Andrew Jacobson, Records Operations Manager said, “The Allegheny County Record Center is thrilled to continue its work with the Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society.  We have had a long-standing relationship for decades and congratulate them on the many hours of hard work with the county’s historical documents.  Understanding the importance of these records, we have been delighted with the help of the WPGS to make them available to the public online.”

 In 2006, before today’s high-quality scanners made digitizing a realistic option, WPGS had published a four-part index of these death records and had one set of xerox copies of the records. When a member of the public requested a record, WPGS would make a copy of the xeroxed version.

Now anyone can search the digitized color scans of these records. While Pittsburgh and few other municipalities had already been online, this project brings easy access to all the other municipalities in Allegheny County, from Millvale and McKeesport to Braddock and Bridgeville and everywhere in between. The originals are about a yard wide, so two scans cover one page from the original.  

The new scans of the Allegheny County death records are available on the WPGS website at the URL, https://wpgs.org/allegheny-county-death-records-1893-to-1905/

  The Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization of amateur and professional family historians and genealogists dedicated to the study and preservation of family history mainly in Western Pennsylvania. Since 1974, WPGS has aimed to provide members with genealogically related information, connections, and resources to enhance your family history research, wherever it may take you.