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Some researchers run slipshod over history, genealogists say
YOUNGSTOWN
The specks of paper littering the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse aren’t notebook scraps.
They’re snippets of Mahoning Valley historical records.
As title searchers descend to the courthouse to track down land records for the oil and natural-gas industry, it seems they forget that they are dealing with books, some compiled more than 150 years ago, said Georgene Morgan Fry.
Fry is a regular volunteer from the Mahoning County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society who helps people conduct research at the courthouse.
She’s seen the good: Title researchers who carefully page through large bound volumes.
She’s seen the bad: Researchers who flip through books, wearing down page corners so the ink fades into obscurity.
And she’s seen the ugly: Researchers marking books with ink pens and sipping Pepsi over handwritten records.
Fry and Stacey Adger, president of the local genealogical society, say that it’s not just the large numbers of title searchers, but how they use the materials.
“Let’s put it this way,” Adger said, “before the drilling and everything started, I’m not saying [the records] were in pristine condition — some are over 100 years old — but they were together.”
“They are not trained properly” to handle historical records, Fry said.
Fry said simple rules could cut down on the damage. Those rules include using pencil, banning food and drink and turning pages by using the center edge, instead of the corner.
To prevent damage to the book binding, researchers should pull out horizontally stacked volumes by holding the front and back covers to avoid pulling on the book’s spine, Fry said.
Adger said the county probably won’t be able to enforce those rules, though the society plans to discuss it with the commissioners. She said she would support the digitization of the records.
In Columbiana County, for example, Chesapeake Energy Corp. is paying to digitize such records.
“I really don’t think Mahoning County has the personnel. They don’t have somebody who can police these people with their use of the books,” Adger said.
“But at what expense? Once the drilling companies are done in five or 10 years, whatever’s left is going to be part of Mahoning County history. Those books are our history,” she continued.
Fry said if nothing changes, the records “aren’t going to last.”