Universal York

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Windsor Township Archives

Do you ever wish you knew what your ancestors were like?  After all, they were living, breathing souls just like you and me.  Most of you probably know or knew your parents and all or many of your grandparents.  Some even remember a great-grandparent or so.  Just multiply those family

There are still a fair number of people around who attended the rural one-room (sometimes two-room) schools that dotted York County until the mid-twentieth century. Ask your parents or grandparents and you might get some interesting tales. (Including how they had to walk five miles through the snow, uphill both

The first reported sighting of a flying saucer was in the state of Washington in late June 1947. In less than two weeks reports were pouring in, including from our area. I looked at a sampling of local newspapers on microfilm and at newspapers.com, both accessible at the York County

Our area has a high concentration of descendants of so called “Hessians.” This general term was applied to those soldiers from German-speaking regions whose rulers hired out their regiments to fight on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. (Germany did not become a confederated nation until 1871,

Some time ago I wrote a York Sunday News column on Dr. William Bigler’s 1890 trip to Florida to visit his son. In those days of railroads snaking all over the county, it might have been easier to travel from here to many other parts of the United States than

My previous post shared a July 21, 1905 article from the York Daily about Dr. Reed of Lancaster coming to look for the camp where his grandfather guarded Revolutionary War prisoners. We know the site today as Camp Security. Dr. Reed’s visit must have been important in the news of

I never tire looking at the drawings of York folk artist Lewis Miller (1796-1882). His illustrations depicting town and rural life during the first half of the 19th century are so detailed. He wrote captions, most just a few sentences, but some quite lengthy, adding more insight into the daily