Genealogy Research in Western Pennsylvania

A Summary of a Lecture by Marilyn Holt

The first program of 2001 for the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania was a summary of "Research in Western Pennsylvania" presented by Marilyn Cocchiola Holt, who is the head of the Pennsylvania Department for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. She has been with the Pennsylvania Department for 17 years and also has held many key offices for the Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society. 

Holt began by defining "Western Pennsylvania" as the 26 counties west of State College, and added that research in that area has many of the same advantages and disadvantages found across Pennsylvania. "It's no better or worse than any place else," she said. "Courthouses are the same; the basic approach to research is the same." 

Pittsburgh, which is by far the commonwealth's largest city out west, has a number of repositories and libraries that are worth a genealogist's time. 

Holt began with her home base, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, which she described as having the "largest genealogical collection in a public library in Western Pennsylvania." Among the resources there are a Biography and Business Index, which is a card file of names taken from biographical histories that cover most counties in Pennsylvania. Other notable indexes include marriages (1786-1910) and death notices (1786-1913, 1968-1988) taken from the Pittsburgh Gazette, which was the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies. The Pennsylvania Department also has the entire run of microfilms of the U.S. Census for Pennsylvania. 

There is also a vertical file of newspaper clippings starting in roughly 1900 on Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania topics in general. The Carnegie Library has microfilm copies of many newspapers, Holt said, as Pittsburgh had seven newspapers in circulation during the early 1900s. In addition, Holt said, the library includes many more esoteric holdings such as a run of the Homestead Daily Messenger newspaper. 

Holt said the Carnegie Library does not circulate its microforms or one-of-a-kind books through Interlibrary Loan (She recommends the State Library of Pennsylvania for newspaper microfilm loans). Holt said that she is gradually converting many of the brittle books in the Pennsylvania Department to microforms to prevent further damage to the originals. 

The Carnegie Library's holdings from 1972 to the present are available on the Internet, but about half of the Pennsylvania Department's items predate this and can be found only through the department's paper card catalog. 

Holt's department has also put together "Pathfinders" on general genealogical research as well as Scotch-Irish, Italian, Ukrainian and Polish research - countries from which many Western Pennsylvanians emigrated. 

The University of Pittsburgh's Darlington Memorial Library also has helpful items that many researchers overlook, Holt said. These include scrapbooks and special manuscript collections, including a large amount of material relating to Pittsburgh and the entire Ohio River Valley. Several other repositories that Holt described were: 

• Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania's library, which has an online catalog and closed stacks. Holt said the historical society is building impressive collections for those of Italian and Jewish heritage. It also has loads of material on Pittsburgh history, families, and companies, though is orientation is more toward historians and archivists rather than genealogists. 
  
  
• University of Pittsburgh's Archives of Industrial Society has a number of collections that genealogists can use among its 20,000 feet of paper documents and 100,000 photographs. These include: files of the United Electrical Workers union; records of ethnic churches and organizations; corporate documents; and records of the former city of Allegheny, which in 1907 became the north side of Pittsburgh. 
  
  
• Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall opened in 1910 and is a repository of records relating to individuals with Civil War service from western PA. Among the highlights of its collection are Grand Army of the Republic post records; Army enlistments; and Allegheny County burial records for Civil War veterans. 
  
  
• Historic Pittsburgh, an "online only" collection of materials from Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh, has plat maps for the area as well as indexes for U.S. Census entries for Pittsburgh (1850 through 1880) and Allegheny city (1850 through 1870). 

As far as religious archives, Holt noted that Roman Catholic records of the Diocese of Pittsburgh can be researched by the diocese on an unrestricted basis for records more than 100 years old and with varying degrees of restriction for newer records. The Western PA Conference of the United Methodist Church, headquartered in Allegheny College, Meadville, has published some of its early records, as has the Pittsburgh Presbytery. There is an Evangelical Lutheran archives on the campus of Thiel College in Greenville. 

The Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society, which was founded in 1974, has its own book stacks in the Carnegie Library's Pennsylvania Department and volunteers from the society are available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The society's holdings include family files, indexes to members' ancestor charts, and published family histories. Its holdings are described in a separate online catalog as part of the Pennsylvania Department's Web site; there is no paper catalog. The society publishes the WPGS Quarterly and the award winning JOTS from the Point newsletter. 

Some other societies that Holt mentioned were:

• Erie Society of Genealogical Research which has a major publishing program. 
  
  
• Cornerstone Genealogical Society, headquartered in Waynesburg, Greene County
  
  
• Blair County Genealogical Society, which has a beautiful new facility filled with resources, including the books from the old Floyd Hoenstine rental library.