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Webinar: Finding the Living (American Ancestors)
Title: “Finding the Living: Doing Descendancy Research” Presenter: Hallie Borstel Date viewed: December 10, 2020 (1h) Permalink: https://www.americanancestors.org/education/learning-resources/watch (must have account) Summary: As family historians, we focus on tracing our ancestry further and further into the past, going back one generation at a time. There are, however, cases when we need to do the opposite and trace lines forward. In this webinar, Genealogist Hallie Borstel will discuss how descendancy research, i.e. tracing all descendants of an individual to the present, can help you further your research. Whether you are building out your ancestors’ network of extended family, hoping to understand DNA connections, working on a study project, creating a family…
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Webinar: Using County Histories (LegacyFamilyTree)
Title: “The Most Prominent Citizens: Using County Histories” Presenter: Cari Taplin, CG (GenealogyPants.com) Date viewed: December 9, 2020 (1h15m) Permalink: https://familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=1277 Summary: County histories bring rich possibilities to our research through biographical and historical sketches. They provide an abundance of FAN Club members and research clues. We will examine county histories through the use of a case study. Beginning with a research questions, we will examine the methodology of the FAN Club and make some breakthroughs in the research using county history sketches. This program will also discuss where researchers can go to find county histories for their own research. Notes: This was a fun beginner’s webinar on a somewhat…
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Mines and Mining in Pennsylvania by Frank Hall
Written by the assistant chief in the Department of Mines, this is a short booklet about the then-current state of the mining industry in Pennsylvania. Starts off a little effervescent about coal as a magical resource, which I suppose is understandable given the circumstances. According to the booklet, PA has the greatest depository of coal in the US and has more capital invested in coal operations than any other state. There are two types of coal present: anthracite in the eastern part of PA, and bituminous in the western part. There’s about 3x more bituminous coal available in PA compared to anthracite, but anthracite is more valuable due to its…
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John Ira Briner, Lewis Andrew Briner biographical entry in Who’s Who in the Protestant Clergy, 1957
Amanuensis Monday – this daily prompt, developed by John Newmark at Transylvanian Dutch, encourages bloggers to transcribe family letters, journals, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. (An amanuensis is someone employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.) Today’s post is a transcription of a book clipping, Who’s Who in the Protestant Clergy (1957). It features two of my relatives and I discovered it through Google Books. Original page (cropped): (Click to enlarge.) Citation: Who’s Who in the Protestant Clergy (Encino, Ca.: Nygaard Associates, 1957), 34; digital images, Hathi Trust Digital Library (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001599528: accessed April 6, 2020). Transcription: BRINER, JOHN IRA: Evangelist, Assembly of…
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Rev. Arthur Vespa, Mary Chiappelli Vespa retirement notice, 1973
I’m currently waiting for a (very late) train up to Burbank for the Genealogy Jamboree this weekend, and to kill some time I thought I’d do some transcriptions. I really enjoy transcribing documents, and it’s good practice for learning different types of handwriting/fonts/etc. [Update: the train came 1.5 hours late, but I made it to Burbank!] Many of my relatives on the Briner/Vespa side were deeply involved in the (Christian) church, including my great-grandparents Arthur Vespa and Mary Chiappelli Vespa. They were ministers for the Assemblies of God for many years, and when they retired there was a notice in the local paper which talked about some of the things…
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Briners in Vira Methodist Church Cemetery, Mifflin County, PA
Today’s GeneaBloggers Tribe topic selection is: “Tombstone Tuesday – exactly what it sounds like it is.” Most of the family tombstones I’ve been able to find are pretty plain, which is a little disappointing. I keep hoping for a detailed inscription, or a fancy image, or a carving! But most of my ancestors who could afford gravestones tended towards the “modest” type, and the most they’ve got on them (that I’ve found so far), is their names and dates. So instead, I thought I’d go a little off-script for this prompt! I’m going to write instead about one of the cemeteries that my ancestors are buried in. For this week’s…
