HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The Blair County Genealogical Society will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Roller Hojeth Memorial Library, 431 Scotch Valley Road.
The program is free, and the public is welcome. The library is handicapped accessible.
The speaker will be Jonathan R. Stayer, head of the reference section at the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, where he has been employed as a reference archivist since 1985.
Stayer has written several articles on various aspects of local history and genealogy. He edited and published the Stayer Reunion Newsletter for nine years.
He is a member of numerous local, state and national genealogical and historical organizations, and he served on the boards of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania and of the South Central Pennsylvania Genealogical Society.
He is a member of the Blair County Genealogical Society. His current research interests include Pennsylvania's Civil War conscientious objectors and the Stayer and Gundrum families.
Stayer has been involved in personal genealogical research for more than 25 years. Jonathan is married, has three children and resides in York County.
He will speak on what information is available to a researcher. Some of those items are the county records for Pennsylvania, state land records, maps and military records from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War. census records, passenger lists, naturalization records, state court records, teacher certifications and occupation records.
All visitors are welcome to tour the library before and after the meeting.
The Blair County Genealogical Society will be closed for the month of December. The regular operating hours for the calendar year will reopen at 10 a.m. Jan. 3.
