October 2021 Program - Genealogical Resources of the York County History Center’s Library and Archives
By Nicole Smith, director of the Library and Archives, York County History Center
The York County History Center’s Library & Archives houses an extensive and varied collection covering a wide range of topics, including genealogy and family history, local history, decorative arts, community organizations and historic sites and military history. Nicole Smith, Director of Library & Archives, will give a presentation on useful resources in York County genealogy research available through the History Center.
Nicole Smith began as Assistant Director of the Library & Archives in 2017 and became Director in 2019. She is a graduate of the American Studies Master’s Degree program at Penn State Harrisburg and has worked in historical organizations, museums and archives for over 15 years.
This archived presentation may be watched here.
Summary of the October 3, 2021 program, “Genealogical Resources of the York County History Center’s Library and Archives” by Erica Runkles.
Nicole Smith, Director of York County History Center’s Library and Archives, gave a compact overview of the facility’s many resources, both in-house and via its website. She explained upfront that services have been slightly affected by the current pandemic: hours are now 10-4, Tuesday to Saturday with the necessity of reservations made online or through the front desk. You may bring your own laptop to access various online sites such as Ancestry.com, Fold3 or Newspapers.com through the library’s portal. Since YCHC is now an official Family Search affiliate you can gain special access to data collections not available from home.
Nicole also touted the library’s Family Files for 9000 different surnames, Family Reports for 500 surnames, Land Records (think warrants and surveys), the Church Registry Collection, newspaper indexes for marriages and deaths, Vital Statistics’ cards on births, baptisms, deaths, taxes, estates, burials, York and Adams County atlases and maps, Sanborn insurance maps, and library shelves of some 3000 family genealogy books, to cite just the “tip of the iceberg.”
If you can’t go to the History Center, please know the website offers a surname database of family reports, an index to the Hively Land records, searchable photographs, and guides to military collections such as Dennis Brandt’s Civil War soldier database, which will soon to be updated from the current 3000 to 25,000 names. Nicole also reminds the audience that research can be done by mail and that the library welcomes your genealogical research on your York County families.