The Year Without a Summer and 19th Century Records

Hello friends,

These newsletter subject lines just keep getting longer and longer! I wanted to write "The Year Without a Summer and Confusion in 19th Century Records" but that had no hope of showing up in your email. For fun I've been reading about the fraternal societies of the 19th century. Some of these were secret, some magical, and some just friends supporting one another. The International Order of Odd Fellows is probably best known (and still around today), but there were literally tens of thousands of these societies around the country. At the Kutztown Folk Festival last week I saw that a woman revieved one of the Groundhog Clubs locally. It's a bit of a drive for me, but I might have to join. I get a special bandana!

🗺 History Highlight

One of the most fascinating events for me is the summer of 1816, The Year Without a Summer. It captivates me because 1) the only records we have of it are a few newspaper mentions and people’s diaries; and 2) the effects were devastating causing hunger and migration of people. The short story of summer of 1816 is a volcano erupted in Indonesia in 1815 and the ash in the upper atmosphere cools the northern hemisphere about 2 degrees. It’s enough to cause frost and snow to hit periodically throughout the summer killing crops. The few crops that survive are tiny due to the reduced sunlight.

It’s been hypothesized by historians that much of the movement of people into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois during this time was due to the wintry 1816. I haven’t found Philadelphia and the surrounding counties much affected, but counties in the rolling hills of central and western Pennsylvania definitely would have been. Having ancestors out there then, I wonder how many went hungry or died. There were no vital records so a child born after 1810 and died before 1820 would be lost to time. I also wonder if they thought it was the End Times.

I keep the summer of 1816 in mind when researching. It was a pivotal and would have affected my ancestors actions not just that year, but for several years afterwards. I'm going to be putting up some images of paintings done in Europe at that time on my Instagram this weekend if you want to see what it looked like in 1816.

🔖 Featured Genealogy Record

Unfortunately for us, Pennsylvania wasn’t doing any sort of vital record keeping in the 1810’s to capture what happened in the Year Without a Summer. We might find as genealogists that there are less tick marks on our family from the 1810 to 1820 census. Or perhaps we might find a few more headstones in the local cemeteries.

The first time the state attempted to do universal vital records was 1852. It was a massive flop with few people registering their family’s births, deaths, and marriages. The law was repealed in 1855. The few registrations recorded that survive today are found on Ancestry:

• ​Pennsylvania, U.S., Births, 1852–1855​
• ​Pennsylvania, U.S., Marriages, 1852–1855​
• ​Pennsylvania, U.S., Deaths, 1852–1855​

The second attempt at state-wide vital records was in 1893. It was more successful than the 1852 one, but still not 100% complete. The county courthouse collected birth registrations and death registrations and put them into ledger books. Most of these are not searchable so I go to the FamilySearch catalog, type in “Pennsylvania” followed by the county I want, which gives me a page of the county's records by category. I scroll down to “Vital Records” and find the registration books there. For example, here's the catalog listing for Montgomery County, PA.

Remember marriages licenses began in 1885 and these county records have stayed county records since then, more-or-less unchanged. You’ll also find these on FamilySearch if they’ve been microfilmed, but counties also have the originals.

🎙 What’s New on the Podcast

If these registrations I explained above are confusing, I attempt to make it un-confusing in this week’s podcast episode. You can see as you get to the 19th century for research, location really matters. We still don't have state-wide databases of all the 19th century records because they haven't all been microfilmed/digitized.

🍬 Inner Circle Members

My website is up and running. Unfortunately, it still doesn't have the Member area the way I want it, and the log-in is still glitchy. So rather than sink more time into it, I'm looking into something already set-up for memberships. I have a good friend who uses Podia.com, so I'll probably be going with that.

My goal is to have a space where you can learn about Pennsylvania records and history so you can find all your ancestors here. Plus be able to meet other family historians on Zoom and get your questions answered one-on-one. I'm tired of Facebook groups and webinars, so this will be something different. Let's see what can be created ✨