A good but often untapped resource for persons seeking to learn about their family roots is a scrapbook or journal or diary kept by a friend or neighbor or just unofficial town historian. At this site we'll try to identify where these types of resources are maintained, and if you should happen to have access to others, please let us know.

One of the most accessible (if you live in Centre County, that is) set of scrapbooks is a grouping of items maintained by Adella Fink Spangler from 1926 to 1942. All sorts of newspaper clippings from obituaries and anniversaries to family reunion notices, and incidental items with both "hard" and "soft" news value can be found in these books which are housed at the Pennsylvania Room of the Centre County Library and Historical Museum in Bellefonte. Names of persons mentioned in the news and feature items can be found in the 250,000-name card file index to the Spangler Collection with an SB (for Scrap Book) designation on the card. The scrapbooks were photocopied and bound in green.