We are excited to announce the release of some of the volumes in Series 2 through 7 in the Pennsylvania Archives. With these new records we now have about 78% of the Pennsylvania Archives online. These additional records include topics such as marriage records, muster rolls, tax lists and various records relating to the Revolutionary War. Here’s a list of the different series and what they contain.

Colonial Records – (All volumes completed)
Volumes I to X, “Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, from the Organization to the Termination of the Proprietary Government,” contain material dating from the beginning of English rule in 1682 to its end in 1775. Volumes XI to XVI, “Minutes of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, from its Organization to the Termination of the Revolution” include records from the early statehood period.

Series 1- (All volumes completed)
Series one contains twelve volumes that reproduce papers selected chiefly from the files at the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. They were printed in chronological order to parallel and supplement Colonial Records. The earliest materials are dated 1664-and the latest 1790

Series 2 – (Still working on volumes 2, 18, 19)
The nineteen volumes of the second series contain a broad selection of materials taken from numerous civilian sources in addition to repositories within the government of the Commonwealth. The series contains marriage and baptism records extracted from numerous parishes and denominations throughout the colony, muster rolls and papers relating to militia units from various counties, along with early records of immigration.

Series 3 – (Still working on volumes 4, 6, 15–17, 26)
Series Three contains land records and accounts of the Treasury of the State of Pennsylvania. Among the series are twelve volumes of tax records ranging from 1765 to 1788, along with details on land grants, including those to soldiers of the Pennsylvania line in the Revolutionary War, and records of land purchases from the State of Pennsylvania dated 1733 through 1896. The final four volumes are an index for the series.

Series 4 – (Still working on volumes 11 & 12)
The fourth series is a chronological collection of official papers of the governors of Pennsylvania from William Penn (1681) through William Alexis Stone (1903). Contained within the collection are addresses, proclamations, letters, and formal correspondence.

Series 5 – (Still working on volumes 2, 4-8)
The fifth series collects all available muster and militia rolls from Pennsylvania’s early statehood period, including the Revolutionary War and the French and Indian Wars. This series contains records included in the second and third series, presented here with greater accuracy and detail.

Series 6 – (Still working on volumes 1-4, 6, 9, 12, 14-15)
The sixth series continues the collection of early military records begun in the fifth series and includes muster rolls for the post-Revolution period, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican War of 1846-1848. This series also contains additional miscellaneous material such as records of marriages and baptisms, details regarding forfeited estates, and eighteenth-century election returns from the counties. Volume 15 of the sixth series contains an index for the fifth series.

Series 7 – (Still working on volumes 2, 3, 5)
A comprehensive surname index to the more than one million names listed in the sixth series.

Series 8 – (All volumes completed)
The Eighth Series reprints the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania and comprises the journals of the Provincial Assembly during English rule of the colony from December 4, 1682, to September 26, 1776. The collection of this material was originally begun by Benjamin Franklin in 1754.

Series 9 – (All volumes completed)
The ninth series contains the Executive Minutes of Pennsylvania’s Governors 1790-1838, and differs from Series 4 in that it records the official minutes and acts of successive governors, whereas the earlier series contains the private papers of the governors such as addresses and correspondence.

We’re back in the office, making sense of what we learned and making plans to improve the site. I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who made our California road trip such a success.

First, thank you to everyone who let us into their homes. It’s quite an act of faith to let a herd of people you don’t know come into your home and look over your shoulder while you work.

Without exception, the people we met with were competent, intelligent, helpful and, on top of it all, very nice. Their thoughtful feedback really helped us understand some fundamental things about the site, and what we can do to make it better.

Thanks to Dick Eastman for all his work to help us find the right people to visit, for providing the level of trust those people needed to let us into their homes, for bringing Wanda, for his insight during the visits and for being fun to hang out with. Poor Dick had to go straight from these visits to a cruise. We wish him every success at the shuffle board and the buffet table.

Thanks also to the folks from the office who could not come, but helped in so many ways: Making arrangements for the trip, making real-time fixes to the site during our visits and making the sacrifice to stay home so that things wouldn’t come to a complete halt while we were gone.

Thanks to our management team for supporting all our efforts to make a site focused on meeting the needs of people who use it.

Here are a couple more pictures from the trip, just for fun.

You can’t believe everything you read - especially online.

It’s one learning we’ve come away with after hearing plenty of stories of history buffs being misled or finding their research being appropriated by others without credit.

Moreover, many felt that their willingness to help often went unappreciated. To paraphrase one interviewee, “I’m not answering any more questions unless someone says, ‘thank you.’”

When it comes to describing the problems of trust and collaboration, just about everyone we talked with cited Wikipedia as the poster-child for the problems online.

What’s interesting is that although many people immediately object to the idea of collaborating or sharing their research with others, that’s what they’re doing all the time.

There is also a reluctance, at least when asked, for people to see themselves as experts in anything. This is not unusual. In studies we’ve done, most people will say they are an “intermediate” even if they’ve been doing research for decades. It’s a modesty peppered with a dash of pragmatism - if you don’t proclaim to be an expert, you won’t be a lightening rod for criticism.

But it’s more useful to see the web as media where you publish first and edit later. This is a hard paradigm to swallow for historians who, more than most, sweat the details of their research, sometimes toiling away for years before publishing.

The web turns the traditional research model upside-down and, for those willing to participate, provides a much more powerful way to discover and share.

Update: As a little experiment, a SUNY Buffalo academic seeded false data into Wikipedia articles. How long did it take before his acts were noticed? (Via Arts & Letters Daily)