As always, the beginning of a new school year in these parts sets many genealogists wondering how to find scholastic information about their ancestors.
First, let’s understand what public and private elementary and high school main offices cannot do.
Few of them will have data on students of the past, and legal concerns would prevent them from sharing it with descendants anyway. The high schools, public and private, also might or might not have yearbook collections. But even if they do, those collections are probably not open to the public.
So, you must research the academic element of your ancestors pretty much the way you would research any other aspect of their lives.
Early on, the town an ancestor lived in probably had its own school system. The Luzerne County Historical Society has much information on early towns and their schools, particularly in the Phillips notebooks. That’s a good start.
In the 1960s, though, a wave of consolidations took place, and the more than 70 municipalities combined their schools into just 11 districts. To find out what modern districts a town’s schools joined,look at municipal websites, which will probably tell you the name of the modern district it utilizes.
You can then go on a search for yearbooks. There is no single central location for them in this county. I recommend contacting the public libraries and the various local historical societies. They generally have some yearbooks, but the sizes of the collections vary greatly.
Modern private schools – secular and religious – have also absorbed many of the older, earlier private schools. Research them in Phillips (which runs until the 1950s) and by visiting their websites, which are often quite informative about history.
Genealogical Society News: The website of the Northeast Pennsylvania Genealogical Society now offers great ease in leaning what the society’s holdings are. Just go to www.nepgs.com and you’ll immediately find the button “Digital Index of Resources.” Clicking on it will give you a complete list of the society’s massive holdings of material related to our area.
So, whether you’re looking for church, court or mining industry records, you’ll spot them easily when the complete list comes up. This does not mean that all the records are available online. For many of them, you have to visit the society’s headquarters. That’s in Annex II of the Kirby Health Center, North Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre.
However, because of ongoing health concerns brought on by the pandemic, visits are limited to members, and the visits must be scheduled. Go to the website and/or Facebook page for information on membership, appointments and distance research.
Historical Society News: The Bishop Memorial Library of the Luzerne County Historical Society is open but with limitations. Visit the society’s Facebook page for information on days and hours and advice on making appointments.
DNA News: The largest-ever effort to identify victims through DNA testing is continuing, but slowly, the New York Times recently reported. For the first time in two years, remains of another victim of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center have been identified.
For a few years after the attacks, many remains a year were being identified, the paper said. But many of the remains found after that time bore little DNA to be extracted by the technology of the time. Now, better methodology has enabled more to be identified. Still, 1,106 remains of the 2,753 victims remain without identifications, and progress is very slow because of the damaged condition of the remains, the Times reported.
Tom Mooney is a Times Leader genealogy columnist. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.