Henry J. Young Award - Harry E. Senft, July 2024
by Jonathan R. Stayer, President, South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society
Harry Eugene Senft was born on August 6, 1947, in York, Pennsylvania, to Harry Edward Senft and Gertrude Mae Guyer Senft. He was a combat veteran of the Vietnam War,serving from 1967-1968 in Battery E, Second Battalion, 12th Marines, Third Division. Known by many in the York area as “Butch,” he worked for more than thirty years as a machine operator at Borg Warner, later York International. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
He died from COVID on Monday, October 12, 2020 at Memorial Hospital in York, leaving his wife Sheryl White Senft. He was buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery. In addition to his wife, his obituary lists the following family members: sons Harry Fogle of Yoe, Pennsylvania, George Senft of Grand River, Ohio, and Michael Senft of York, Pennsylvania; daughters Tina Senft of
Painesville, Ohio, and Christianna Senft of Hialeah, Florida; brother George Senft of York, Pennsylvania; sisters Shirley Webb of Red Lion, Pennsylvania, and Florence Knisely of Virginia; and stepson Brian Bean of Outer Banks, North Carolina.
Harry made significant contributions to the genealogical community. He was an indefatigable researcher who spent countless hours in libraries, archives and cemeteries, documenting his own family history and that of others in the York area. I personally recall the numerous times that he came into the library of The Historical Society of York County (now York County History Center) to search for a piece of information. For more than 30 years, he served as the family historian for the Senft Society of America.
But what we most appreciate about Harry, and the primary reason that we enthusiastically supported his nomination for the Henry James Young Award, is his more than a quarter million—one source says 280,000!— photographs of gravestones in 300-400 cemeteries in York and Adams Counties, and surrounding counties, which he contributed to Find-A-Grave and to the FamilyHart website. Find-AGrave conservatively estimates that Harry added 142,241 photographs and almost 46,000 memorials. In addition, he provided 2300 volunteer photos. The FamilyHart website has an entire section labeled “Harry Senft Cemetery Pictures.” One can go to those sites today and see the results of Harry’s productivity. All of us can be thankful for this tremendous body of work!
His son Michael, who nominated him for the Award, spoke of Harry’s “relentless effort and time put into this hobby/obsession of his.” Michael recalled:
“My father worked his whole life from the age of 30 on doing genealogy and family research for York County residents. He used to have me go out in the cemetery when I was very young up until I was in my 30s to help him clean off gravestones, take pictures, and list them online on Find-A-Grave. He was a true genealogist and spent many days before the internet walking around looking for information in books, archives, libraries, and cemeteries. He dragged his whole living family along to help him with his hobby. At the time, I [disliked this] andactually got angry sometimes because I thought that it was so boring, but now, looking back, they are some of my fondest memories, and I have a newfound respect for what he was doing by preserving history.”
Harry’s wife Sheryl kindly called his obsession a “special gift,” and she has similar memories of his activities:
“Over the years, Harry and I spent a lot of weekends walking through cemeteries, taking pictures of graves. Afterwards, Harry would update his records, uploading [his photographs] to Find-A-Grave. . . . Many times, I told Harry that his was a
special, precious gift, to be able to find individuals and link families together. I always supported his efforts, no matter if they intruded into our personal time together. It was helping others to find their families.”
For the “precious gift” of hundreds of thousands of gravestone photographs that he left to us and for his dedication to genealogical research, the South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society was delighted to bestow the Henry James Young Award on Harry Eugene Senft.