It rained hard most of the night last night, and nobody disturbed me in the Planet Fitness parking lot. I kept the windows closed due to the rain, and slept comfortably with my fan and the cooler temperatures that the rain brought.
I had no trouble getting to the Presbyterian Historical Society for my 9 am appointment. The historical society has a private parking lot, so parking wasn't a problem.
-- Background --
One of my ancestors, Charles (Charlie) Hooke, and his first wife Elizabeth (Lizzy) were married in a Presbyterian church in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1900. They immigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia a few years later. He arrived in April 1903, and she arrived a little over 10 months later in March 1904. The passenger lists don't list any children or infants accompanying either of them.
We don't know much about their time in Philadelphia. The ship passenger lists show the destination addresses they provided. Both addresses are in the Mantua area of West Philadelphia. The address he gave was a few blocks away from the one she gave. We don't know if one of them was incorrect or if he changed addresses before she arrived.
They were only in Philadelphia for a few years. Lizzy returned to Scotland in February 1907. We learned from a letter she wrote that they had two children during their marriage, and both children died. The letter didn’t say where the children were born or died, but it did say one of the children was sick near the end of 1906.
Prior to my trip to Philadelphia, I searched Scotland's official birth and death records online and didn't find any information about the two children. I also searched birth and death records for Philadelphia on ancestry.com and familysearch.org, and didn't find anything about them there, either.
I don't know if the family attended a local Presbyterian church while in Philadelphia, but since Presbyterians baptize infants, I thought it was worth looking through the church records held by the Presbyterian Historical Society and see if either or both of the children's baptisms/deaths were recorded by a church between 1904 and 1907.
My plan for today was to start with the Presbyterian records, and if I didn't find the information there, go to the Philadelphia City Archives next and search those records.
-- The Search at the Presbyterian Archives --
A very nice lady named Charlene met me at the door and helped me with my research. She was very knowledgable, and provided me with several good resources and suggestions. She helped me formulate queries to find available materials, and willingly retrieved them from the archive room.
Baptism, marriage, membership, and death records are recorded in a book at each church. The books are eventally sent to this building and stored in the archives. To view records from the archive, I had to first issue a query to find the available volumes and get their catalogue numbers. Charlene helped me formulate the queries.
For each matching item, the query results had a description of the data, the years covered, and a catalogue number for the item if it is in the archive. I then filled out request slips for the items I wanted to examine, handed the slips to Charlene or one of her colleagues, and they retrieved the requested items for me.
The first thing I needed to learn was which Presbyterian churches were active in West Philadelphia during the 1904-1907 time period. The archives had a very useful book named "Historical Directory of Presbyterian Churches and Presbyteries of Greater Philadelphia", by Kenneth A. Hammonds.
The book lists the name, founding date, physical address, and active dates of each church, as well as any related mergers or building relocations. It had an entire chapter on West Philadelphia churches.
Charlene knew I was trying to determine which churches were active in the area during 1904-1907, and she brought me a book of city maps with the locations of all the Presbyterian churches marked with a dot and number. A set of sheets kept inside the book cover listed the churches by the same numbers, along with their addresses, active dates, and other useful information. The maps and accompanying sheets were extremely helpful, and I was able to cross reference West Philadelphia churches on the map with those mentioned in the West Philadelphia chapter of the Hammonds book!!
I narrowed down the likely Presbyterian churches to three that would have been within walking distance: Northminster (the closest Presbyterian church), Tabernacle, and Walnut Street. Charlene retrieved the record books for all three churches for me.
The books typically have sections for baptisms, congregants, and deaths. The data in most sections was arranged by date, but sometimes there was also an alphabetical section.
I searched the appropriate sections of the retrieved record books, and didn't find any matches. I found several entries matching my last name (maybe I'm somehow related to them?), but I was looking for Hookes, so that didn't help. Below is one of the pages with a baptism of someone with the same last name as mine (almost half way down the page).
I thanked Charlene for all her help, and told her I would try the Philadelphia City Archives next. She wished me good luck and welcomed me to come back or contact her if I ever needed to research more information from their archive.
-- The Search at the Philadelphia City Archives --
The Philadelphia City Archives wasn't too far from the Presbyterian one. The city archives required me to sign in and write down my name, address, phone number, and what I was searching for on a registration slip.
A city employee named Teresa was very helpful and retrieved two sets of cards for me -- one for births and the other for deaths -- of people whose names start with H during the years 1904-1907. Two of the years had deaths recorded on microfilm instead of cards, so she also brought a box containing the roll of microfilm.
I thought the cards contained all the information they had on the births or deaths. I didn’t understand that the cards were just reference cards, and if any of the cards interested me, the workers could pull the official certificates associated those cards for me. The certificates have a lot more information than the cards.
For example, the following birth card lists the mother's name as Lizzy Hooke, but it doesn't say where Lizzy was born, her age, etc.
I found at least 3 cards that had potential, but hadn't mentioned them earlier because I thought there wasn't enough information to decide if they were matches.
By the time I learned about the actual certificates, the office was about to close, so it was too late to retrieve the documents today. I told Teresa I would come back -- most likely tomorrow -- and she said we could start by pulling the certificates associated with the cards I thought had potential.
-- Deciding where to Sleep Tonight --
I didn't want to sleep downtown again tonight, and I want to visit Valley Forge while I'm here, so I decided to spend the night in Norristown or King of Prussia. Both cities are near Valley Forge. I also need to find a laundromat and do some laundry tomorrow.
The manager at the Walmart in Norristown told me they don’t allow overnight parking. I got the same response at the Costco in King of Prussia. Thankfully, the Walmart in King of Prussia allows overnight parking, so I'm spending the night there! I'll have to drive to Norristown to shower in the morning, though.
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