How to research your family roots in Pennsylvania

Genealogy has taken off in recent years

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

Family tree mobile app, genealogy template vector illustration. Cartoon apple green tree with branches and portraits of four generations of relatives in infographic history chart on phone screen

Airdate: July 17th, 2023

 

Researching family history or genealogy is booming.

On The Spark Monday, James Beidler, Interim President of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania explained a few of the factors contributing to genealogy’s popularity,”More people with spare time. DNA analysis being available and the internet in general bringing records and documents to people’s desktops. You triangulate the three of those things together. And yeah, it’s been a real explosion.”

The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania was founded in 1892 and says it was “among the first to recognize the value of collecting and preserving the vital and personal records of people whose lives comprise much of our American history.”

Beidler described how to get started researching one’s family history,”You want to figure out what do you have in house. Do you have your parents birth certificates? Do you have military discharge papers? Do you have a family Bible? Take an inventory of your home’s sources and what names and dates do you know about people? Also, pay attention to the family stories, even ones that may be kind of wacky, because your pedigree is a whole lot more than names and dates.”

Beidler said that once you’ve learned what you can at home and from family, past U.S. Census’s provide a lot of information like listing people living in a household and where they lived at the times of the Census. Birth and death certificates, and newspaper archives also are valuable resources.

Beidler indicated DNA analysis had made a lot more information available,”It’s now estimated that more than half of the people in America are represented in the DNA databases today, not necessarily because they’ve taken a test, but because a relatively close relative has.”