Podcast Episode 90: Meet South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society

Genealogical societies are often overlooked, despite their potential to uncover family histories and local narratives that might otherwise remain hidden. Denise, the host, and a staunch advocate for these societies, brings us an engaging conversation with Jonathan Stayer, the President of the South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society (SCPGS).

Watch the full episode:

Meet Jonathan Stayer

Jonathan Stayer has been researching his family history for about 40 years. His journey began in 1979 as a student work-study employee at the historical society of York County, which is now the York County Heritage Trust. Initially uninterested in genealogy, Jonathan found inspiration from the researchers he assisted and the volunteers he worked alongside, many of whom were members of the genealogical society. Consequently, Jonathan joined the South Central Society in 1979 or 1980, and after retiring, he felt compelled to give back by taking on the role of president.

The Importance of Genealogical Societies

Jonathan emphasizes the significance of local historical and genealogical societies, noting that they often unearth valuable information that might be inaccessible through other means. Members gain access to specific, sometimes unpublished resources that can prove vital to understanding family histories and local lore.

Because many times these local places will make you aware of or dig up things that you won't find out about any other way.

Regular Meetings and Programs of SCPGS

SCPGS holds monthly meetings on the first Sunday, with the exception of July, August, and December. These gatherings feature a variety of topics, appealing to genealogists and those interested in local history alike. Their programs encompass everything from genealogy topics to local historical events.

Notable Programs:

• Coroner of York County: Insights into coroner records
• Pennsylvania State Archive Updates: Updates on ongoing construction and new processes

Field Trips

SCPGS occasionally organizes field trips to explore historical sites. A memorable trip included a visit to Connawaga Chapel near McSherrytown, Pennsylvania, known for its stunning artwork and historical significance. Future plans include a trip to the new Pennsylvania State Archives and a tour of the New York County History Center's new building.

Some of the more unique trips include visiting locations with fascinating histories, like the Hex Murder Trial site and Camp Security, a Revolutionary War prison camp. These trips provide members with firsthand experiences in Pennsylvania’s rich landscape and historical buildings, making history come alive.

Engaging with Local Experts

The importance of connecting with local experts cannot be overstated. These individuals often possess deep, localized knowledge not found in popular databases. Engaging with them directly can reveal hidden histories and offer unique insights into genealogical research.

One local tradition is Powwowing. Jonathan details the practice of powwowing, a blend of Christianity and folk beliefs used primarily for healing.

"Powwowing, I think, comes out of a Pennsylvania German tradition of combining some Christianity with folk beliefs."

Benefits for Remote Members

SCPGS extends numerous benefits to members who may not reside locally. These include:

1. Special Publications: These often feature transcriptions of unique local records.
2. Bi-monthly Newsletter: Packed with genealogy tips, local resources, and reports from meetings.
3. Free Research Hour: A one-hour research service at the York County History Center for members.
4. Program Recordings: Members can access recorded programs on the York County History Center's YouTube site.
5. Members-Only Message Board: An interactive platform for members to ask questions, share advice, and exchange ideas.

For more information and to become a member, visit the SCPGS website at scpgs.org.

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Transcript

Because many times these local places will make you aware of or dig up things that you won't find out about any other way. And that's where I think the value is of local historical and genealogical societies. We are here today with Jonathan Stayayer, who is going to teach us about south central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society. As most people know, I am a huge fan of genealogical societies. I think they are an untapped resource in Pennsylvania as well as our historical societies. And Jonathan is going to really give us the 411, the big info on what's going on with south central and Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. I'm thrilled that you're here.

Thank you. Denise, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to be the president of South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society. Well, I have been researching my family history for about 40 years, and when I first started in 1979, I was working as a student work study employee at the historical Soc. York county, which is now York County Heritage trust. I had really little interest in genealogogy at that time, but most people who were coming and do research were doing their family history, so I was helping them do their research, and I became interested in genealogy. And many of the volunteers then and now for the history center are members of the genealogical society. And so they said, we really should become part of this society. And I've been a member of the South Central Society for, well, probably since 79 or 80. I really was not as actively involved when I was working full time.

Once I retired, they tapped me to become president, and I felt like I should do something more than what I was doing because of all the benefits that I had received over the years from the society. And so I see this as a way of giving back to the genealogical community by being president. Tell us a little bit about those programs. I've attended a couple of those over Covid, because you were doing them virtually, and they were excellent. I did. One was with the coroner of York county, talking about her role in the coroner's records. That was really interesting. In another one was one of the updates from the Pennsylvania State Archive as construction was ongoing from 2021 through 2023. So one of those updates with the state archivist, which was also an excellent program. If people want to dig through the YouTube archives or St archives, those are wonderful to watch if you want to trip back through history.

But what upcoming programs do you have? What programs do you offer to members? We generally meet once a month on the first Sunday of the month, except for the months of July, August, and December. We generally offer two types of programs. We have speakers and sessions at the York County History center, and we try to cover all different types of topics that might be of interest to genealogists and people interested in local history. So not only do we cover genealogy topics, but also if there's something related to York county history, south central Pennsylvania genealogical or south central Pennsylvania history, we have people come and talk about that. So we've had speakers not only talk about genealogy subjects, but also things like the Underground Railroad in York county, the civil war in York county, different religious groups. We had a speaker on the Amish. We had a speaker on languages sessions for us. One on indian, I think it was native american languages, another one on Pennsylvania Dutch. So we've had a lot of good programs. And I just want to mention regarding the state archives. In April, we had Aaron McWilliams from the state archives come and tell us about their latest, how they operate now since the new building has been opened, how genealogists can use it. So if you want to, a very good introduction to what you need to know before you go to the state archives, go back and look at that video, because he did an excellent job. In fact, even though I've worked at the state archives for 35 years, I learned some things because things have changed since the new building opened. Yeah.

And then not only do we have programs at the York County History center, but also we periodically take field trips to other sites. In just in May, we went to Connawaga Chapel near McSherryown in Pennsylvania, which is the oldest stone. I think they say it's the oldest basilica in the United States. Constructed a stone, something like that. It's a beautiful church inside, lots of great artwork. And the priest was very knowledgeable about the history and the artwork, we had a great time there. We visited many sites across York county. We are hoping it'coming year to plan a trip to the new Pennsylvania State Archives and get sort of a behind the scenes tour. The New York County History center is opening their new building this summer. We're planning to offer a program where we get a tour of that. Some of you may know that Adams County Historical Society recently opened a new facility. I think that was last year. I've been trying to push to get us to tour their new facility as well. Probably one of the most unique places we visited in the 19 twentiesnsylv York county was notorious for what's known as the hex murder trial. A Pow hour was killed in southern New York county. And because some people believed he had put a hex on them. He was killed in his house. His house was. They tried to set fire to his house. His house still stands. And so one of our offs site trips was to go visit that house. And local attorney, who's very knowledgeable about the case, talked to us about how that case developed. And that was a very interesting experience.

Another trip we made. If you see the background behind me, this is the terrain for camp security, which was, was a revolution prison camp here in York county. And we did have one of our meetings out at, near the site of camp security. Wow, that's nice. I love field trips. I think when you see the Pennsylvania landscape, our buildings, and you meet some of our people, a lot of things start to click. Place in place in your head in terms of genealogy research, and you reference these local experts who are just walking encyclopedias for the area and the topic that they specialize in. And you're not going to be able to google that, unfortunately. You got to just reach out and email and talk to people to get that information, which is part of the reason why I do the podcast, to try to introduce people to some of the wonderful folks in Pennsylvania.

Not to take us too far off topic, but for people that aren't familiar with Pennsylvania culture and history, can you just do an explanation of what powwow is? Powwowing, how should I describe it? Powwowing, I think, comes out of a Pennsylvania german tradition of combining some Christianity with folk beliefs. Primarily, it was used as a means of healing people from different sicknesses. If you didn't want to call a doctor, you called the Pow hour. And the Pow hour would do. Might tie a certain type of string on you or put, I think one of the things they did was put copper bracelets on people. I don't know all the details like that. And then they would, they would read sometimes scripture verses or prayers or special incantations, and it was supposed to heal people. And from what I've read and what I've seen, it's kind of a combination of Christianity and sort of folk beliefs. Some people would say it's. I mean, there was some feeling among certain religious groups that this was satanic rather than christian, and that's not really truly christian, but I don't think its origins were in something that was evil. So. And my understanding is there's still powowerss around today, although I have not personally had any contact with them. Yeah, there are still powerw hours around today. It's very much underground from what I understand. It's not like you can again use Google or Google Maps to locate your closest powwow practitioner. Yeah, it is very much an underground movement. And yeah, the term magic is one that a lot of people don't use, but it's somewhat of a magical practice. I mean, they're doing a ritual, ritual some people.

So let's get back. So that's just one ex, example of how interesting Pennsylvania is compared to its neighbors. For those unfamiliar with Pennsylvania research or one a deeper appreciation. So let's get back to south central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society I do want to talk about if someone lives out of state and can't travel to come back for these field trips, what benefits do they get for joining as a member? What resources do you provide for people that are at a distance? Well, we have several things. Probably what I'm most proud of are special publications where we identify, particularly your county sources. Although we've used some things from other counties that are not well known, that have never been, in some cases never microfilmed, scanned or published in any way. We'll transcribe those and publish those. We currently are in the process of public'publishing, a series of volumes transcribing the 1862 draft enrollment lists from York county. That'll finish this fall. And then in the spring we're going to be publishing a transcription of a York borough poor tax book which lists individuals who paid taxes to support people who were indigent. And then also it has information about people who were indigent, what they were receiving money for, and in some cases, if they died, when they died, where they died, where they were buried, details about their funeral. It's a great little resource if you have ancestors who lived in the borough of York. So that special publications be one benefit.

We do have a bionthly newsletter which we send out, and our current editor and our board is trying to put more good genealogy hints in there, more local resources, different things like that. We put in reports of our meetings. So if you want to get a kind of outline of what we talked about in meeting, you can look at the newslet ##ter a newsletter. Another thing we offer in addition for members who are not local if they want to have some research done. I think I forget what the current policy is, but I believe we'll do up to an hour of free research at the York County History center for members. A if you go to our website, it'll explain what that research possibilities and since COVID since we've returned from COVID your York County History center has been recording all of the programs we have at the history center and putting them on their, I think it's their YouTube site. So you can go back and look at those programs if you want to. So those are things we offer people off site. Plus, if people are members just recently, within the last year, set up a members only sort of, I forget we call it, but I call a message board. You can submit questions to this site, and members can respond, offer advice, or point you to other things. Or we throw ideas around. So that's another opportunity for off site members. But I'm a member of many genealogical and historical societies, and usually what my policy is, I join an organization that covers an area that I'm interested in, because many times these local places will make you aware of or dig up things that you won't find out about any other way. And that's what I think the value is of local historical and genealogical societies. And the value of being a member is many times you can go to a website and you might not find what you're looking for, but if you're a member and you're getting their newsletter, you're getting an email communication, you might be alerted, something you would never have known about otherwise. 100%. Yeah. It feels like there should be a finite amount of resources that one can access and that you know about all of them. But what we've discovered, the more we research, the more we find, especially locally, that that poor tax theous indigenous list. That's incredible. To get the list of names when people died and that we were re living in the city of York or borough of York at the time.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And that's something that's not been microphone by family search. It's not going to get digitized. If you're sitting at home thinking, I'just, wait till it shows up on ancestry. You're not going to ever see it there. It's just too much of a niche, tiny little interest product for something for ancestry to show or find my pass or any of the big websites, you really just got to go to the people that are the experts and you guys are it. I'm encouraging anyone that has ancestors in south central PA, that would be the counties of York. But also, do you cover dolphin?

We primarily cover the counties of York and Adams. That's our York and Adams focus. We also have published and offer some programs related to surrounding counties, particularly Cumberland, Franklin, some Lancaster, some of the counties in northern Maryland. Although they have excellent historical societies. Well, most of these counties do, but we just kind of see ourselves as a place where people have questions, and they wanna come and learn more. Usually every January, in lieu of a speaker, we have what we finally call our show and te session for our program, where people come and share what they've been researching, or if people have questions that come and ask them. And I think this past January, we had a lady who brought in a collection of papers and was just asking, you have some deeds. Can you tell me about them or can you read them? Me. And so we went through them. One year, a lady brought in a very nice. It's more than a scrapbook. It was a very nice book she did on her family, but it was more pictures and then some text about each generation and about the family. It was well done. I mean, it gave people ideas of what they could do with the material that they're collecting. So I really like that January meeting. It's a neat time to see what other people are doing or just seeing. I mean, people sometimes bring in family heirlooms, or they bring in family photographs, and they tell about them. You learn a lot of things that way.

I love that. Show and tell was always my favorite part of school when I was a teacher. I love show and tell. It was great. One of my favorite memories, being a nine year old boy who brought in a regular camera that you and I grew up with, film camera, and was astounded that when you took the pictures, they didn't immediately show up and know that they. And that you couldn't look at them. And then if you open the back of the camera, all the pictures would disappear. He thought that was amazing. So I love when people talk about what they find about their ancestors, because it's the same wonder, you know, about, know, how they came across this and the discoveries that they made. And it is astounding, especially sometimes we're just touched that the things made it down to us or were revealed to us. Yeah.

Well, Jonathan, I do have ancestors in York county that I just discovered, the Locke family. So I will be joining south central Pennsylvania Genealogy Society and using the resources at your history as soon as they're open to see what else I can find about these folks, because it. It sounds like they were some Germans who arrived on the earlier side and settled in an interesting bunch. So I always love researching that group. But I wanted to thank you for being on the podcast and giving us an introduction to the organization. And can you just let people know what's the best way to contact the organization? The website address, and I'll make sure to put all this in the show. Notes for people.

Certainly the best way to get in touch with us is through our website, which is simply the initials of our name, scpgs.org. scpgs.org. If you forget all that, just Google south central Pennsylvania genealogy. It'll probably be one of the first things that comes up. There is a but or, I don't know, whatever you call it, a link button on our website. You can send an email to us and the website tells you about our programs, our publications and all those things. And we certainly invite anybody to attend our programs. Our programs are free and open to the public, and we would be delighted to have you join us as well because it's the members, we have an all volunteer board, all volunteer staff. So it's the members dues and contributions that actually keep us going as far financially. So we don't have a big budget, but I think we do a lot of good with a little bit of money that we do have. You do, too. All right, well, thank you for being on the podcast, and I look forward to talking you to you it again soon. Thank you for having me.

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