Katy Bodenhorn Genealogy Research

07/31/2026

Registration is still open and you would have immediate access to all the presentations today through November 10, at your leisure, from the comfort of your home.

Live Q&As with the speakers (myself included!) will be happening next week, August 6-9.

🎉 PaGE Recordings Are Available NOW!

The Pennsylvania Genealogy Event presentations are ready to watch! Registered attendees, if you haven't started, log in to watch recorded sessions today, then join us August 6–9 for live speaker Q&As, interactive gatherings and more.

Registration is still open, so there's still time to join us and get immediate access to the recordings!

🔗 Register and log in today: https://events.genpa.org/

07/31/2026

The Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia needs your help! If you have a few dollars to spare, they need an emergency $30,000 to fix their mechanized shelving! Archivist Sheila Joy explains in the video.

Donation link in the comments below. Every little bit helps! Archives are so critical and also SO expensive to maintain!

07/24/2026

A ✨Friday tip✨: research the history of the places your ancestors lived, not just the people themselves. The changing jurisdictions can affect where records are and may lead you to miss something if you're looking in the wrong place.

Here's a PA example (drink your coffee first and follow along, this one's a bit of a doozy!) Today in Montgomery County there are three similarly-named townships: Salford, Upper Salford, and Lower Salford. The first "Salford Township" was originally established about 1727 (in what was then Philadelphia County, because MontCo wasn't formed until 1784). BUT! Salford Township was then carved up into different jurisdictions by the 1740s and *ceased to exist* for the next 150 years. But THEN, a NEW Salford Township was created in 1892--the same one that exists today but not the same one that existed in the 1720s-1730s.

How this is relevant: if you're looking for "Salford Township" tax lists on FamilySearch, you won't find them. And that's because FamilySearch's collection covers only the years 1785-1847, which happens to be the range in which "Salford Township" did not exist. Don't mix up the names!

07/23/2026

The PaGE conference (Pennsylvania's Genealogy Event) is HERE and LIVE! If you register today, the videos from 24 different speakers are already available to start watching from the comfort of your home. Then, August 6-9, you can tune in for live Q&As with the speakers (myself included!) and for virtual gathering sessions on a variety of topics. I'll be involved in two Q&As, both on Thursday, August 6.

If you are researching Pennsylvania ancestors, this is not to be missed. $200 for all of that ain't bad!

Link to registration and more info in comments.

07/13/2026

Here's a question for you this sunny Monday afternoon. What's the last genealogy conclusion, assumption, or finding you were WRONG about? No shame, it happens to all of us. What did you learn from it?

Being able to take your lumps, stay humbly open-minded, and get back on track is a critical skill for a genealogist at any level!

[below, a recent-ish pic of me at the Chester County History Center in West Chester, PA]

07/05/2026

Historic Trappe today hosted a live reading of the Declaration of Independence...in German!

By the time of the Revolution, one-third of Pennsylvania's white population was German-speaking. In fact, many still spoke only German--especially those living in the southeastern counties like Berks, Lancaster, Dauphin, Philadelphia, and Northampton. As a result, the Declaration was translated as quickly as possible. It was first published in the German-language Pennsylvanische Staatsbote newspaper on July 9, 1776, and would have been read aloud to crowds in public places, not unlike this balcony staging in what is now Montgomery County, PA. Many Pennsylvanians' first exposure to it would have been in German, not English.

For more information about how and where the Declaration spread and when, I highly recommend Dr. Emily Sneff's new book "When the Declaration of Independence was News" (Oxford University Press, 2026).

And if you're PA-local, be sure to visit Historic Trappe and it's Center for Pennsylvania German Studies.

06/30/2026

Here's something to do inside in the nice, cool AC on August 12: James M. Beidler's "German-Speaking Immigrants" course, online at Family Tree University. Registration link in comments.

06/29/2026

A small pro tip this morning: remember that in the 1800s, Mc- surnames were often spelled and printed with an apostrophe instead. This could affect your results if you're making your searches only for names with Mc or Mac! Use those wildcards! (* and ?)

And while we're at it, you may need to search manually, page-by-page instead of relying on the search bar. In this exact case, the OCR technology didn't read "M'Ilvain" when I queried, and it doesn't appear in searches. But she's definitely there.

Example pictured from the marriages section of the Village Herald newspaper of Woodbury, New Jersey, 28 January 1824.

06/26/2026

Heads up! Fold3 is offering FREE access to millions of Revolutionary War military records, now through July 6 only. Have fun!