Public History Course Research Projects: IUP and Indiana Area History

These projects were undertaken by the students in the Spring 2018 Introduction to Public History course with Dr. Jeanine Mazak-Kahne.  Their assignment was to select a building which they found interesting in downtown Indiana, PA, research its history, and craft a presentation. What you will find in this section of the guide is a discussion of their process, as well as their completed project.

Project Team: Leandra Nash and Darren Frederick

SOURCES

Indiana County Recorder of Deeds Office

Indiana County Public Records Office

Historical & Genealogical Society of Indiana County

The Indiana Gazette Archives

The Indiana Gazette File Photos

Access Newspaper Archives Database

S&T Bank Website

Project Team:  Antonella Mastroianni and Samantha Stossel

SOURCES

1. Indiana County Courthouse Research

Tax Assessment Office. We asked employees for the oldest record that they had and for the newest. The Tax Assessment only had records that went back to the 1960s (at least for our building). The most recent records told us who the current owners are, their address, and specifications about the property.

Older Tax Records in Basement. After employees in the Tax Assessment Office informed us that older tax records for our building were located in the basement, we continued our research there. We were able to find records that pertained to our building but, due to time restrictions, we were not able to find all the records. If other researchers were to do this, they may possibly discover more precisely when the building was built.

Deeds Office. Most of our time was dedicated to the Deeds Office. Here we discovered all the deeds for the building, which told us who owned the building and for how long. Moreover, we discovered through the deeds what the professions were for several of the owners. We found the deeds by searching through the Courthouse’s online database and by manually looking the deeds up in the Deeds Office.

We also located the Wills of several of the owners, which gave us more background information on the building. We found the Wills by looking them up and finding the physical copies in the Courthouse.

2. IUP Library Databases

Newspapers. By accessing old Indiana newspapers through the IUP Library Databases, we found additional information. For example, we were able to find A. W. Taylor’s advertisements for his law office located in our building and his obituary.

LibGuide. Dr. McDevitt helped us set up our LibGuide for our building, which will help future researchers with similar projects. It contains information about our building, how we conducted our research, and our final presentation on our building.

3. Indiana County Historical Society:

We also went to the Historical Society to see if they had any information on our building. Unfortunately, they did not seem to have any additional information regarding our building. We did not have the opportunity to access Ancestry.com at the Historical Society. Future researchers should take advantage of this because it could help gather additional background information on both the building and the owners.

Project Team: Laken Olah and Amber Trkula

SOURCES

In finding information about this building, there were certain steps that one should consider in order to research a building.

1. Choose Building
   1. Evaluate site and structure
   2. Examine landscape and perimeter of area
   3. Choose based on personal and local interests
2. Finding local sources
   1. Court House
      1. Deeds Office
         1. Trace historical records back by starting with latest landowner. The latest landowner can be found by searching the address in the online system. Then find the book corresponding to the latest owner. Near the end of the document, the previous owner can be found by searching for the phrase “Being part of the same premises…” It will include the book and page number of the previous deed, as well as the date and previous owner. Continue back as far as possible.
      2. Tax Assessor
         1. Find the current owner and report to the office. Ask the person at the front desk (nicely) to help. You should be able to find information regarding to the current value of the building.
   2. Local Public Library
   3. Historical Society
      1. Historical societies can offer a lot of different sources ranging from maps to entire indexes and histories on the local area.
3. Utilize internet Sources
   1. Newspaper archives: https://access.newspaperarchive.com
   2. IUP Library and Databases: https://libraryguides.lib.iup.edu/az.php/
   3. IUP Magazine: https://www.iup.edu/magazine/
   4. Google
4. Piece information together
   1. Create a timeline of chronological owners, occupants, etc.
   2. Once you have foundation of information on building, you can begin accessing more detailed information from the sources listed above.

Project Team: Dylan Hall and McKenna Miller

SOURCES

1. After picking our building, we went to the Indiana County Deed’s Office located in the court house.
2. Once we dated our building back to the original owner of the lot, we went to the Indiana Historical Society to research our building and the owners of our building.
3. A large part of our research was looking going on to Ancestry.com to learn about the building owners and their lives.
4. The next step in research was searching the newspapers released in Indiana to see if our building or the owners were mentioned. We used Access Newspaper Archives on IUP Library’s database page.
5. Being that Indiana, PA is a small town, we wanted to see where they lived in relation to our building. So, we used Google Maps to see just how close the owners resided from the building.
6. We went to the library to read about Indiana, PA around the time the building was constructed.

Project Team: Megan Richardson and Karlena Calabro

SOURCES

Indiana Courthouse Deeds office and Tax Assessment office 

Indiana Historical Society 

Interview present owners

Indiana Free Library

IUP  Stapleton Library 

Access Newspaper Database for local newspaper articles