Genealogical Gems

My great-great grandfather, Michael Walsh, immigrated from Ireland. I know nothing of his family or life there. Once here in America, he settled in Shenandoah in Schuylkill County, PA, where he - like many an Irishman - became a coal miner. Shenandoah is known for its abundance of anthracite coal which lies beneath it. The area was settled farmland by 1835. The Philadelphia Land Company acquired the land by 1850 and banked on the coal mining future of the small town. The Civil War presented a new found need for coal sources. In 1862 the Philadelphia Land Company then surveyed the land and laid out a town. The town was named Shenandoah, after the nearby creek. The first colliery also opened that year. Just two years later, in 1864, coal was being shipped by rail. The photo at right is one of the Kohinoor Colliery (photo from eBay). The miners worked long hours for low wages. The immigrants and their families were forced to be crowded into ...

  Urchuk John 1889 - 1965 Mary 1897 - 1966   buried at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Cemetery Valley Township, Chester County, PA   Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging prompt prompted by GeneaBloggers in which an image of a gravestone is featured. It may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.

February may be Black History Month but mark your calendars now for the African American History Conference on 5 April. The conference is a NEW outreach that the African American Historical Society of South Central Pennsylvania is launching to tell the stories of African American life and contributions.   Click HERE to read the full article as it appeared this morning on Examiner.com.

  Prus Joseph Prus 1879 - 1949   buried at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Cemetery Valley Township, Chester County, PA Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging prompt prompted by GeneaBloggers in which an image of a gravestone is featured. It may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.

Lukens Steel Mill - now ArcelorMittal - is the oldest continuous running steel mill in the Nation! It can trace its origin to 1793 when Issac Pennock founded The Founding Slitting Mill. He partnered with Jesse Kersey in 1810 forming the Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory. Pennock, after a few years, bought out Kersey, who by the way was the son in law of Coatesville founder Moses Coates. Pennock then leased it to his own son in law, Dr. Charles Lloyd Lukens. A year after Lukens became involved with the business, the company was the first US mill to produce boilerplates. Thus began their involvement with the shipping industry. Daddy didn't talk a lot about the mill but from time to time there would be some news story about a sub or a ship. He would make a comment like "It'll hold if that steel came from us!" Daddy was a UT inspector for years at the mill. After high school, the only time he wasn't working at the mill would have been when he was drafted an...

  Michael Pavlisko 1886 - 1953 buried at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Cemetery Valley Township, Chester County, PA      Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging prompt prompted by GeneaBloggers in which an image of a gravestone is featured. It may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.

The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County has released the 2014 Watch List of the most threatened historic properties in Lancaster County .   T wo sites added to the list are the Dorsey Station (1876) in Fulton Township and the former Long Funeral Home (1895) in Columbia .    “Being on the Watch List is not a negative because each of the 10 properties represents an opportunity to save a significant structure that helps define our Lancaster County history,” said Lisa Horst, president of the Historic Preservation Trust Board of Directors. “Everyone loves historic restoration after it occurs, but it takes vision, leadership and resources to make it happen.   The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County works to bring together individuals and organizations to make it happen.” Properties on the Historic Preservation Trust’s 2014 Watch List are: Circle Creek Farmhouse/Guy’s Distillery (1826) – 1467 Long Lane, East Donegal Township Th...

  Buckle Michael  1921 - 2005 Ruth E Haenftling  1926 - 2009   buried at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery Valley Township, Chester County, PA Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging prompt prompted by GeneaBloggers in which an image of a gravestone is featured. It may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.

Rosa Kirchner is my husband's great grandmother (John, Frank, Glenn). She was the daughter of John (Johannes) Kirchner and Barbara Kuhn and was born 4 September 1859 in Lancaster, PA. She was the youngest of four known children. Her siblings are: Mary Anna (b 1851), Philip (b 1852), and John (b. 1857). I know little of her childhood. The family lived in the Cabbage Hill section of the City with many other German immigrants. The family was Roman Catholic and attended St. Joseph, which at the time was primarily made up of German families. On 24 August 1881 she married Charles Henry Eckman, the son of John Henry Eckman and Catherine Kezia Creswell. Their son John was my husband (Glenn)'s grandfather. Charles preceded her in death, passing in 1886. She married Peter Weber some time after. They had one son - Charles - who was born in October 1897. She passed sometime after 1924.

This April the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society (LMHS) will host the 35th Annual Family History Conference . The Keynote Address this year is titled "Family History Through Photographs Daguerreotypes to Digital." Seminars this year includes: Identifying and Dating Photographs —Maureen Taylor Finding Your Ancestors Through DNA - Which Test is Beset for Me? —Darvin L. Martin Getting the Most from Ancestry.com —Sabrina Petersen, Ancestry.com Beginner's Luck - A Primer for the Beginning Genealogist —James C. Landis Genealogical CLues in Nineteenth Century Photographs —Maureen Taylor What DNA Can Reveal about Our Health —Darvin L. Martin How to Find the Unfindable —Sabrina Petersen, Ancestrycom Philadelphia Research: Repositories and Records —James M. Beidler House History: Researching a Historic Home at the Lancaster County Archives —John F. Bennawit, jr. The Last Muster: The Revolutiona...