An update on the release and quality of the PA Birth and Death Documentation..

[madinmaryland]

PaHR Access:

We received a notice today from FamilySearch that the PA Archives is trying to communicate with the Health Department regarding the quality of the microfilms vs the originals. The letter states that there is a microfilm copy in use by the Health Department to fulfill copy requests. The quality of the filming is to be considered further and FamilySearch may be digitizing the originals for the state archive. Stay tuned.

http://www.facebook.com/PaHRAccess

This could be good news that FamilySearch is looking to digitize the originals.

[csziggy]

1. That's good - illegible copies are worse than none at all

Because it's so frustrating to think the records are there but can't be made out.

I was disappointed at how recent the Pennsylvania records were, though. They do me no good at all in fact, since my most recent PA ancestor left that area in 1753.

[madinmaryland]

2. We arrived in PA in 1738 and have had a presence there since then.

Of course, I never lived there, but it is interesting learning about it. I saw my gggggg-grandfather's grave just a couple of weeks ago in Berks County. Even got to meet the minister of the church where he and his wife are buried.

[csziggy]

3. One branch arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682

Actually in that branch there were two main families, the Harlans and the Hollingsworths, that were recruited in Ireland by William Penn. The Hollingsworths bought land before they left Ireland and arrived in 1682 before William Penn - there is a record that at least one family member was on the dock when Penn arrived. I think the Harlans got there about 1685.

George Harlan owned land right on the border between Delaware and Pennsylvania on a bend of the Brandywine Creek and donated the land for the Old Kennett Meeting House. Later generations of the Harlans and Hollingsworths married and my line left for North Carolina in 1752 where the Harlan men became Regulators.

There were some other branches on my side that passed through Pennsylvania but most didn't live there a generation. My husband's family has a branch with a long history in Pennsylvania but I haven't worked on that line yet. They were Welsh Quakers, I think. Their people left PA sometime in the mid-1800s to move west.

Some day I want to get there but those old Quakers didn't believe in tombstones, so there are no markers to visit. I've never visited the state but would love to someday since I've read the family history all my life.