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Tamaqua Remembers

Although I never lived there, Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, where my parents grew up, is very dear to me. Located in Schuylkill County in northeastern Pennsylvania, Tamaqua was a coal and railroad town. It was settled in 1799 by my ancestor Burkhardt Moser. Tamaqua has a historical society (of which one...

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Land Records Showed the Way

One of the first stumbling blocks I encountered in my research was the family of my great-great-great-grandfather Peter Andrews (1814-1882), father of my great-great-grandmother Rebecca (Andrews) Whetstone, who married Absalom K. Whetstone of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. A handy county-history biography of one of Rebecca and Absalom’s sons-in-law revealed the...

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Sakusky DNA–Segment Data!

These are my great-grandparents Anthony Sakusky (1878-1921) and Cecelia “Tillie” Buscavage (1883-1922). They lived inShenandoah and Tamaqua, coal and railroad towns in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Anthony was a coal miner. Both Anthony and Tillie were born in Lithuania, but neither left documents specifying their family places of origin. Tillie...

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In Honor of Labor Day 2017

For Labor Day 2016, I wrote a blog post highlighting ancestors who belonged to labor unions. For 2017, I thought I’d highlight a few labor-related resources I’ve found helpful in researching my ancestors who worked in northeastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal industry. Ancestry, “Pennsylvania, Coal Employment Records, 1900-1954“ This collection...

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