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A place to find history - and ancestors

Be­hind sev­er­al locked doors and met­al shelving units at the His­tor­i­cal So­ci­e­ty of Penn­syl­van­ia, a non­de­script book is nestled next to a draft of the Constitution and a print­er’s copy of the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pend­ence.Like its neighbors, the small, un­as­sum­ing jour­nal provides a glimpse into an im­por­tant part of Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Wil­liam Still was a prom­i­nent Phila­del­phia ab­o­li­tion­ist and mem­ber of the Penn­syl­van­ia Anti-Slav­ery So­ci­e­ty, and, per­haps most im­por­tant, a con­duc­tor on the Un­der­ground Rail­road. Dur­ing the mid- to late 1850s, Still kept a de­tailed di­a­ry of run­away slaves whom he helped es­cape to free­dom.

Be­hind sev­er­al locked doors and met­al shelving units at the His­tor­i­cal So­ci­e­ty of Penn­syl­van­ia, a non­de­script book is nestled next to a draft of the Constitution and a print­er's copy of the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pend­ence.

Like its neighbors, the small, un­as­sum­ing jour­nal provides a glimpse into an im­por­tant part of Amer­i­can his­to­ry.

Wil­liam Still was a prom­i­nent Phila­del­phia ab­o­li­tion­ist and mem­ber of the Penn­syl­van­ia Anti-Slav­ery So­ci­e­ty, and, per­haps most im­por­tant, a con­duc­tor on the Un­der­ground Rail­road. Dur­ing the mid- to late 1850s, Still kept a de­tailed di­a­ry of run­away slaves whom he helped es­cape to free­dom.

The di­a­ry includes facts such as who owned the escaped slaves, how the slaves were treated, what they looked like, and, on some occasions, the new names Still him­self would give them. The last note helps over­come a dif­fi­cult road­block Still un­wit­ting­ly provided for any descendants of those escaped slaves who wish to trace their lin­e­age.

A quick vis­it to the so­ci­e­ty web­site may set­tle any fears of dead ends. The jour­nal has been dig­i­tized and transcribed, providing researchers and genealogists alike with an im­por­tant as­pect of the Un­der­ground Rail­road's leg­a­cy.

Still's jour­nal is just one of the more than 21 mil­lion items in the so­ci­e­ty's archives, which explains why researchers, genealogists, and students flock to the lo­ca­tion at 13th and Lo­cust Streets in Cen­ter City.

San­dra M. Hewlett has been work­ing close­ly with the so­ci­e­ty since 1987, when she started volunteering with the Ge­ne­a­log­i­cal So­ci­e­ty of Penn­syl­van­ia. Hewlett's in­ter­est in ge­ne­al­o­gy began in the late 1970s af­ter the death of a fam­i­ly mem­ber who had been compiling a fam­i­ly his­to­ry.

"I can re­mem­ber staying up all night reading it," Hewlett said, no­ting the in­stant spark she felt to com­plete the rest of the re­search.

Hewlett, who lives in Oaks, Mont­gom­ery County, began work­ing on an in-depth his­to­ry that traced her lin­e­age across the Unit­ed States and to Eng­land.

"I have a fifth great-grand­moth­er who is buried in the Tower of Lon­don," Hewlett said. "She's buried at the Chapel Royal of St. Pe­ter ad Vincula."

Her dis­cov­ery came af­ter ge­ne­al­o­gy led her to Eng­land, both for her fam­i­ly and even­tu­al­ly for others. Hewlett started receiving requests from friends to con­duct some ba­sic ge­ne­a­log­i­cal re­search. In 2001, Hewlett decided that she would be­come a pro­fes­sion­al and ac­quired the ti­tle of certified ge­ne­al­o­gist.

Hewlett's cli­ent load varies, depending on the depth and breadth of a pro­ject, she said. One En­glish cli­ent wanted her to look up in­for­ma­tion about a per­son who came to Phila­del­phia. The cli­ent hadn't been able to find any in­di­ca­tion that the an­ces­tor ever made it to the states. Hewlett discovered why — the man had died on the ship. She spent time poring over documents from the customs of­fice and connected the names with customs ledgers.

"The man was thrilled to get con­fir­ma­tion," she said. "That's the beau­ty of ge­ne­al­o­gy. It's al­ways full of sur­pris­es."

Hewlett says that ge­ne­al­o­gy has been increasing in pop­u­lar­i­ty since the post-Civ­il War era. Dur­ing that time, the in­flux of immigrants caused many peo­ple living in the Unit­ed States to want to find out if they were "tru­ly" Amer­i­can.

"In the day, peo­ple would send letters to oth­er fam­i­ly members they know and every­one would write back with dates of marriages, deaths, every­thing they knew," Hewlett said.

Over the years, institutions have built up around the idea of ge­ne­al­o­gy, such as Ancestry.com and the Family His­to­ry Library in Salt Lake City.

The ad­vent of the In­ter­net has made ac­quir­ing in­for­ma­tion easier, Hewlett said. But the vast archives populating In­ter­net servers do not of­fer much help when researchers get stuck.

That's where Hewlett comes in. Pro­fes­sion­al train­ing helps her cull data from libraries across the coun­try, as well as using Goo­gle.

"Every­one has a dif­fer­ent mis­sion," she said. "There's so much avail­able, we of­ten for­get how many resources are avail­able to us."

While there is truth in Ancestry.com's mot­to of "You don't even have to know what you're looking for, you just have to start looking," Hewlett says that it's im­por­tant to start researching what you and your fam­i­ly al­ready know.

The sheer vol­ume of articles and a staff of librarians at the dis­pos­al of the so­ci­e­ty's patrons has Lee Ar­nold, se­nior di­rec­tor of the li­brary and collections, convinced that few better places ex­ist to aid ge­ne­a­log­i­cal re­search.

"That's what sets us apart from on­line or­gan­i­za­tions," Ar­nold said. "You might be able to get a rough sketch from them."

Ar­nold explained that the librarians on hand pro­vide researchers with a "con­text" that on­line sources just don't have.

"You need peo­ple like us to help clear up the con­fu­sion," Ar­nold said.

Those in­ter­est­ed in ge­ne­al­o­gy some­times cre­ate a fam­i­ly his­to­ry, an of­ten self-published work that chronicles the time­line of a spe­cif­ic lin­e­age in nar­ra­tive form.

Though bear­ing the name of Penn­syl­van­ia, the so­ci­e­ty has ge­ne­a­log­i­cal records from every state east of the Mississippi River, as well as more than 10,000 fam­i­ly histories, most of which are donated.

Though the li­brary carries a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of fam­i­ly histories, Ar­nold warns researchers that near­ly all re­main unverified.

Hewlett cautions those who are in­ter­est­ed in ge­ne­al­o­gy that there are some costs, subscriptions to websites be­ing chief among them. And there is also the ad­dic­tive qual­i­ty of ge­ne­al­o­gy to wor­ry about, but Hewlett doesn't seem to mind: "I could be locked in here for a year and I wouldn't com­plain."