The following announcement is from the October 23, 2009 edition of the Altoona Mirror. Following the announcement is some info about the Pennsylvania Historical Mining Reports website.
The Coalport Area Coal Museum will host guest speaker Robin Lighty from the PA Bureau of Mine Reclamation on Tuesday, October 27th at 7:00 PM at the Coalport Community Building.
Mr. Lighty’s presentation will include exhibits and discussions of particular interest to local historians and genealogists about the valuable information going back to 1870 in Pennsylvania’s official mining reports. Special attention in the presentation will be given to the detailed genealogical information reported for more than 100,000 miners who were injured or died in PA coal mine disasters. These annual reports tell a history of hard work, injury, death and disaster in our mines.
Mr. Lighty will also discuss the availability of a website that refers to various university and government libraries that have extensive collections of these reports and how to easily access this information.
Mining reports can give us information about ancestors who may have been hurt or killed in mining accidents. In some cases the reports is just statistical, with number of accidents, deaths and so on given. In other cases, detailed information can be found about those involved in the accident.
The Pennsylvania Annual Reports on Mining Activities website is dedicated to the 51,000 men who have died in Pennsylvania mining accidents. The site has links to the following:
- Annual Reports 1931-2008 – PDF files of the reports.
- Search by College, University, and Public Libraries & Government Offices for Pennsylvania Mining Reports.
- Search by Year (1870-2000) for Pennsylvania Mining Reports at College, University, and Public Libraries & Government Offices.
Numerous other links relating to Pennsylvania Mining activities can also be found at the website.
