Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Berks County Courthouse

I made a spur of the moment trip to the Berks County Court House today. I was originally thinking about going back to the Genealogical Society to look at estate inventories and wills. When I called however, the woman said I'd need to go to the court house for the actuall wills.

Not knowing what to expect I got in my car and drove to Reading once again. I am really getting good at navigating around in that city. (NOT!). Actually I found the Courthouse without too much trouble. When I got to the research room where they keep all of the old wills a very nice woman helped me locate the people's wills I needed. She dug out every Boone I asked for and William Bird. Mark Bird's will was absent. I need to look into this because I have no idea why that would be unless he died outside of Berks county.

This is where it got exciting. Inside of these files were the ORIGINAL wills and estate inventories. not photocopies. The real thing. I touched them all. I spent fourteen dollars on photocopies today, and I was only able to get through the Boones, not any other residents of the Oley Valley that I have been meaning to look into like Lesher or Jaeger.

I found all of the documents to be very helpful. The estate inventories will allow me to discuss the economic situation of the Boones in relation to other members of the Oley Valley. There were also lists of the people that the deceased were in debt to. These will help me discuss relations between ethnic groups in the Oley Valley.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Berks County Genealogical Society

The Berks County Genealogical Society saved my life. Well, maybe that is an overstatement, but it certainly saved my honors thesis. I went there a week and a half ago, after I had spent so much time (and gas) getting to the David Library in a completely fruitless attempt at locating some primary sources. I went to the BCGS on some advice from its president, who I happened to run into while I was researching. I discovered a strange, convoluted, and yet very helpful collection called the Pennsylvania Archives while I was there. Since my visit, I have been able to narrow my topic and finally get the first (actually second, but first acceptable) ten pages written out.

I walked into the Heritage Center Library a day or two after my somewhat failed visit to the David Library feeling a little hopeless. I had eight or ten relatively crappy pages of my honors thesis written. I was torn between several different theses that I liked, but that I was not sure were viable. I was at the HC library simply to scan over a few church records I missed for Exeter Qauker names. Volunteering that day was a man I had never seen before. This was unusual because I thought I knew all of the Library volunteers and staff, and I was prepared for an afternoon with the Glicks, a married couple who fill in for the main librarian some weekdays. This was an older fellow who, I thought, spoke with a slight Pennsylvania German accent. Since I was the only person in the tiny library, he asked me if I needed any help. I explained my project to him and immediately began leaving through some bound church records. I tried to ignore him at first, honestly, because I thought that there was no way he could help me. Then he started asking me about the sources I was using. I told him about the trouble I'd had so far. "Why don't you go down to the Berks COunty Genealogical Society?" He asked. "We have a lot more that was the HC has." "Do you have tax records?" I asked. "What about a map of the townships and who owned what land?" "Or more church records? Earliers ones?" "We have a lot more than what is here," he reiterated "I'm the president of the BCGS."

So the next day had me driving to Reading. The BCGS is located in Goggleworks, which is a big building full of galleries, studios, dance studios, and other cultural organizations. Don't ask me why or how it got there, it just is. Oh, and they have a nice gift shop, with pretty jewlery that I almost spent too much money on that day, but I digress. As soon as I go into the BCGS I was immediately aware that I was the youngest person in the room by a good forty years. Not that I was surprised by this, in fact I was expecting it. I have become completely used to being surrounded by people who are much older than me; it comes with the territory of being a historian and working in the public history feild. A very bent old man is sitting behind a desk having a conversation about "rag heads" with a woman sitting accross the room. The desk is on its own in the front of the room and it looks pretty official. He's the one I'm going to have to talk to first. "what have I gotten myself into?" I think.

I tell the man that I am looking for tax lists for certain townships and he sets me up on the microfilm. It's s;low going but somewhat helpful. He's attentive towards me and constantly asks me how I'm doing. FInally I tell him I am researching the boones. "The Boones?" he says. I knew I should have probably said something earlier.

He takes me back to the stacks and starts shuffling through books. I can hardly understand him because everything comes out in a sort of stream of consciosuness. He leaves me to string the disjointed phrases together to for a complete thought. A woman with long grey hair and a sharp, creased face walks over to us. By now I have been able to deduce that she works here too. She hands me a volume of the Pennsylvania Archives. "This is the volume you want," she says, "I've just researched with this series so much that I know where certain things are by now."

For those of you not aware, this woman's experitise with the Pennsylvania ARchives is no mean feat. These things are divided by series, volume, with no rhyme or reason to the order that documents were edited in. It's a mess that I had always avioded using. Inside this particular volume though were tax lists from the years and townships that I needed. And the really good part? The PA Archives are in any library. I didn't really even need to drive to Reading to read them.

So to make a much too long story short (how do I always end up writing so much?) I found a lot of helpful material at the BCGS. And what's more, because of that material I was convinced that I could change my topic a little. I am now just focusing on the Boones and how they were becoming assimilated into an Anglican and GErman elite and showed their assimilation by fighting in the Revolution. This is a lot more manageable becuase I don't have to trace the genealogy of ten different families in order to track ethnic assimilation. I can just focus on the Boones.

I will write more about this new topic later on. For now just know that I have ten pages written already that I am happy with.