Genealogical Gems

I came across the obituary for a Colonel Van Horn last week while researching my uncle Benjamin Van Horn. On 3 January 1916, the Oakland Trubune printed his obituary in form of an article on page nine. I skimmed over it, not really expecting a connection until I read one line. One little line that said, “Colonel Van Horn was the son of a Pennsylvania farmer of Dutch and Scotch-Irish ancestry.” Who was his father? His obituary reads: Kansas City , Mo. , Jan. 3. – Colonel Robert Thompson Van Horn, founder of the Kansas City Journal and pioneer journalist and statesman of the Middle west , died at his home here today. He was ninety-one years old. Death was due to the infirmities of age. Colonel Van Horn founded the Journal and was for forty-one years editor of that paper, becoming a widely known figure in American Journalism. Kansas City was a village whose inhabitants numbered only 478 when the young Van Horn wnt there and bought the Weekly Enterprise for $500, in 1855, a...

Charter Day at Ephrata Cloister, 2011 Pennsylvania will celebrate Charter Day across the Commonwealth next Sunday, 13 March. In March 1681, the original charter for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was signed by King Charles II, conveying the tract of land that is now Pennsylvania to William Penn. The land was a repayment of a large debt that the King owed Penn’s father. Here in Lancaster County , there are three state museums: Ephrata Cloister, Landis Valley Museum , and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. The Ephrata Cloister is located at 632 West Main Street , Ephrata. Landis Valley Museum is a living history Civil War era village. It is located at 2451 Kissel Hill Road , Lancaster . The Railroad Museum explores the affect trains and the train industry has had on America . It is located at 300 Gap Road , Strasburg, across from the Strasburg Railroad. Many sites throughout the Commonwealth will participate in Charter Day. Those sites are: •  Pennsylva...

It was On This Day in 1787 that Pennsylvania ratified the Constitution. We were, by a vote of 46 to 23, the second state to do so. Pennsylvania was, and still is, an ethnically and religiously diverse state. In 1787 approximately one third of our population spoke German, enough so that the Constitution was printed in both English and German. Sources “ Pennsylvania ratifies the Constitution.” This Day in History, 1787. History.com. On This Day is a prompt to further explore historical events.                  © Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2015

Another Lancaster County boy has been sent to the House of Refuge . Elmer E. McCorkle left for Philadelphia with Officer Swenk On This Day in 1881 after being remanded to the House of Refuge. The boy, just 14 years of age, is the son of John McCorkle of West Willow . The elder McCorkle took his son to the courts and asked for him to be remanded. There was enough evidence to prove the boy to be “very bad” and beyond control. Source Lancaster Daily Intelligencer. ( Lancaster , PA ), 12 November 1881. Chronicling America : Historic American Newspapers . Library of Congress.      On This Day is a prompt to further explore historical events.                  © Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2015

Are you looking for a specific military record for your ancestor? Maybe you are just searching for ancestors in a specific war, such as the Revolutionary War. Have you checked out the Card Catalog on Ancestry.com yet? I went to the Card Catalog, selected Military and then typed in VanHorn for the surname, realizing that Van Horn may or may not show up in this search so I may well have to do it again using that spelling. Ancestry.com, by default, shows the results by “record.” To simplify things, I selected the results be shown by “category.”   Over 29,000 records There are 29,642 entries for VanHorn included in the Military category.    By setting the results to categories versus records, I can focus on ones that have a better chance of including MY VanHorns. To my knowledge my early (i.e. pre-Civil War) VanHorns resided in Pennsylvania and maybe New Jersey . Hence, I can skip over the four VanHorn results in the “Alabama Civil War Muster Rolls, 1861-1865.” T...

Rarely do I pull my On This Day features from the legal/classified section of the paper, but today is an exception. On This Day in 1881, the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer printed a “Supplement to an Ordinance” which established a Board of Health and Regulations. It also noted the requirements to register all births and marriages and now deaths as well! The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had passed an act titled “An Act Relating to Registration of Births and Marriages by Boards of Health wherever established by law in the cities of this Commonwealth.”   The ordinance mandated that when anyone died in the City, the physician or coroner must make a “faithful return” which should include the name, age, sex, color, nationality, date of death and the cause of death.   Source Lancaster Daily Intelligencer. ( Lancaster , PA ), 9 November 1881. Chronicling America : Historic American Newspapers . Library of Congress.      ...

Professor Emil Aust, a musician, applied to Judges Livingston and Patterson to have his two sons sent to the House of Refuge in Philadelphia on 8 October1880 . He alleged that his sons were incorrigible.   So who was Aust? What did the boys do that was so horrible that their own father would give them to the House of Refuge? What happened to the boys?   Aust was in fact a music teacher. He lived on North Queen Street in Lancaster City . Emil shows up in the 1860 Census as a 28 year old Russian/German born music teacher. He was boarding at the Tedderson’s. The article in the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer only stated the boys were incorrigible and gave no other reason as to their commitment.    What was the House of Refuge? On 23 March 1826 Pennsylvania passed an Act establishing a House of Refuge. It was the third such home for youth in the nation. New York began one in 1824 and Boston in 1825. It was to be a place for the “confinement and reformat...

My Walsh/Welsh family were coal miners up Shenandoah, in Schuylkill County . I can only imagine what a tough life that must have been. One of the new databases on Ancestry.com is “ Pennsylvania , Coal Employment Records, 1900-1954.” I was so excited when I saw this!   How to find this database: Go to Ancestry.com Click on “Search” Using the drop down menu, select “Card Catalog.” Type “ Pennsylvania coal” in the “Title” field and click “Search”. On the right side, click on the database. While a few Walsh men are included, my Walsh/Welsh family members are not. It is still a great resource that I wanted to share. The database contains records for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (LCNC). Some cards include very little while some are a goldmine of information.   Not everyone in the database worked down in the mines. William H. Walsh was a bankman living in Tamaqua.    Joseph Walsh has two records. The first record, dat...

Before TMI meant Too Much Information, many living in Central Pennsylvania felt TMI did not offer enough information. TMI, of course, stands for Three Mile Island . On This Day in 1979, in the early morning hours as many area residents were either still asleep or early birds were putting on coffee, a pressure valve in a reactor at the nuclear power plant failed to close. It was – and still is – the worst nuclear accident in US history.   TMI was only five years old when the pressure valve failed to close and the cooling water drained into that open valve. The cooling water was contaminated with radiation. When the water drained, the core began to overheat.   For those who have never seen a nuclear plant, imagine rods – kind of like large pipes – which must remain within a certain temperature range. Water in the tank cools the rods to keep them in that acceptable safe temperature range. When the water drained, obviously then the water level lowered, exposing the rod...

Well, so much for the "to do" list I had hoped to get done today! Major change of plans. Ancestry.com has added a new database titled: Pennsylvania, Birth Records, 1906-1908. This collection contains Pennsylvania births from 1906–1908. The certificates may contain the child’s name, birth date, gender, multiple birth, legitimacy; the father’s name, race, age, residence, birthplace, and occupation; as well as the mother’s name, maiden name, race, age, residence, birthplace, and occupation.

The Molly Maguires was a secret predominantly Irish society known for its activities in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania. Depending on who you ask depends on the second part of the definition. They were either a group of Irish men and women who stood together fighting for the rights and safety of the coal miners and their families. Or, they were a terroristic group of Irish men who wreaked havoc in the coal regions. I suppose it depends on what side of the mine shaft you stood. Disclaimer: Now before I delve into this society, I should put out my disclaimer and opinion now since I am sure it will come out in my writing. My 2x great grandmother, Anna Keating Walsh (later changed to Welsh), is rumored to have been a Molly Maguire – according to my cousins (her great grandchildren). Hence, my interest is also centered around the Shenandoah area as that is where my family lived for a spell. While I would like to get to the truth regardless of which it is, I have to say that my Irish...

Years ago I came across a Genealogical Map of the Counties. I do not recall where I acquired it or from whom. Basically it traces the counties of Pennsylvania in regards to when they were formed. Lancaster County , for example, was formed 10 May 1729. Philadelphia County was actually the third county organized. Chester County was the second. The first county to officially be organized was Bucks County . Now that all said, the latter three counties were all organized in 1862. They are considered as the three original counties.       Mappy Monday is a genealogical prompt of GeneaBloggers.   © Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2015

The Lackawanna Cut-Off opened On This Day in 1911. The Cut-Off was a stretch of railroad line of the Delaware , Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W). The No. 15, a westbound passenger train, passed through Port Morris Junction at 12:15 a.m. on 24 December 1911. It was the first revenue train to operate on the Cut-Off. DL&W operated the Lackawanna Cut-Off until 1960, when it merged with the Erie Railroad.   On This Day is a prompt I started this month to further explore historical events. I will make every effort to keep events localized to that of my research or research I am conducting for others. However, from time to time, it will simply be a subject that captured my attention. Some posts will be brief while others may be more detailed.

George Van Horn is my 4x great grandfather. He was born 3 January 1815 in Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Jane Dudbridge, had seven children. The children are: Chrispin Pierson (my 3x great grandfather), Asher (who lived only one year), Benjamin Franklin (a Civil War veteran), Martha Elizabeth, Joanna D., George W. (who lived only one year), and William G. The 1850 Census shows George and his wife Jane living in the 5th Ward of Kensington in the City of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. The Census was taken that year on 28 July. George lists his occupation as a lawyer and his age as 34. Jane is three years older, at 37. Their children are: Pierson, 10; Franklin, 7; Martha, 5; and Joanna, 2. Samuel Tyler, age 30, was also living with the family. He was a team driver. He was born in New Jersey. The Van Horns were all born in Pennsylvania. Ten years later, George has hung up his shingle as a lawyer in a major city and now shows up as a farmer in Valley Township, Chester County. His age...

Andrew Gregg Curtin was the Governor of Pennsylvania during our nation's Civil War.  The son of Scots-Irish immigrant iron founder Roland Curtin (1764–1830) and his second wife, Jean Gregg (1791–1854), he was born 22 April 1815 in Bellefonte in Centre County. He was the grandson of Pennsylvania politician and president pro tem of the U.S. Senate, Andrew Gregg. Before becoming Governor, he served as schools superintendent. During that time, he started the state system of teacher training in "normal" schools - like Lock Haven State Normal School, now Lock Haven State University. As a war-time governor, he did sponsor taxes to finance the war but managed to keep the state's debt low. More military units for the war were organized in Harrisburg than in any other recruiting point in the North. He organized "The Loyal War Governors' Conference" to foster support among fellow governors. It was this unified group of governors who suggested General George ...

Years ago I had written the Historical Society of Schuylkill County concerning local Roman Catholic churches that my ancestors might have attended. My Walsh/Welsh family had come from Ireland to the coal mines of Shenandoah. My Keating ancestors had come from Ireland to Ringtown. The Society was nice enough to include a list of Catholic churches in northern Schuylkill County and the year they were first organized. The list contains 45 parishes started between 1827 and 1909.   They are as follows: 1.             1827 – St. Patrick in Pottsville 2.             1833 – St. Jerome in Tamaqua 3.             1841 – St. John the Baptist in Pottsville 4.             1842 – St. Vincent de Paul in Minersville 5.       ...