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Today in History: Monday, Feb. 6

<p>If you&#8217;re a genealogist tracing a Luzerne County ancestor who was in politics, you can be a true political junkie and enjoy it. There&#8217;s lots of information available on local elections past for city, township, borough, county and school district posts.</p><p>The Wilkes-Barre Record Almanac, published from 1886 to 1962, contains annual results with names and vote totals in Luzerne County elections and in the larger communities of the county. The old almanacs also offer summaries of issues and political maneuvering within the year&#8217;s elections. For detailed information, you can go to the original newspaper stories.</p><p>Complete sets of the almanacs are at the Luzerne County Historical Society and the Osterhout Free Library. The Historical Society has a complete collection of the area&#8217;s daily papers on microfilm.</p><p>For political news in smaller communities, look in the microfilm newspaper pages for articles under banners with the various towns&#8217; names, rather than on the main news pages. The Sunday Independent (1906-1992) at the Osterhout is especially good on the rural and suburban communities, including of course their elections.</p><p>It&#8217;s not just elective posts that are included. Appointed positions such as health inspector, police chief and school superintendent are also frequently mentioned in the old almanacs and papers.</p><p>Important caveat: In times past the campaign season was shorter than today&#8217;s, and county parties often did not hold conventions and name candidates until September. Spring primary elections had less importance than they do today.</p><p>Another: To avoid wasted time, dip into history (online is fine) and learn when the town or school system you&#8217;re researching was created.</p><p>For earlier years (early- to mid-1800s), the pickings are slimmer and you have to do more searching. The historical society offers many local histories and microfilms of county newspapers outside Wilkes-Barre, also good for telling you who was serving and when.</p><p>If an ancestor served more recently &#8211; say, in the past 50 years &#8211; an online search that includes name and town, county or district, can turn up articles, obituaries or at least dates that you can use to find news stories on microfilm.</p><p>Keep in mind that this political research is up to you, because counties, towns and school districts typically do not archive their own histories.</p><p>Facebook Update: The Pittston, Plymouth and Nanticoke historical societies all now have Facebook pages. All these groups archive material and can help genealogists fill out their research on ancestors who lived in one or another of the towns, which are among the older and larger ones in the Wyoming Valley. Facebook pages typically are more up to date than organizations&#8217; websites.</p><p>Congratulations: A lot of people deserve credit for the many programs held in January in observance of Mining History Month. Speakers, researchers and panelists as well as those who contributed material did yeoman work. Anthracite coal mining, of course, was for many years the dominant industry of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and thousands of area genealogists have miners on their family trees.</p><p>News Notes: I recently taught my &#8220;Getting Started in Genealogy&#8221; class at the Gateway Apartments, Edwardsville. The West Pittston Library plans to schedule my genealogy class for the spring. From time to time I also offer classes in writing your personal memoirs, because I believe a person&#8217;s memoirs will be fascinating to his or her descendants. Watch your Times Leader for dates, times and places of these programs. They are free and open to anyone, but some institutions require that people who want to attend call in advance.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Tom Mooney Out on a Limb </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TOM_MOONEY.jpg</photo0><caption0>Tom Mooney Out on a Limb </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Tom Mooney</p><p>Out on a Limb</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Tom Mooney is a Times Leader genealogy columnist. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Out on a limb: Trace your political roots using some of these avenues