Pennsylvania Coal Miners

[lola66]

Our family story says that my Grandfather and GGF were coal miners in Conemaugh PA inthe late 1800's. Are there any resources out there that I can use to prove this? I have not been able to find them on US census records since Conemaugh spans 3 different counties.

[AmyT]

I found something similar a few days ago regarding PA, and mining, but I haven't the foggiest where it is now. Hey! Maybe our ancestors knew each other...

Good luck!

[ptimber]

Lola why not go to weww.google.com for this bit of info? peter

[DonnaPellegrin]

Coal miners can be difficult to find in the census. Many of my family worked in the coal mines in Northern West Virginia. I often found them in the census under badly misspelled names. I suppose their Italian accents were difficult to understand. And census takers were apparently chosen neither for their spelling abilities nor their handwriting.

I found many of my coal miners in the census using Heritage Quest online's search function. My public library has Heritage Quest for free so it costed nothing. My great-grandfather, Peter Oliverio was listed in their index as Peter Alwerio. My grandfather, James Oliverio was listed in their index as James Balaua. I found them by asking Heritage Quest's search engine to list all the Italian males in the county in a certain age bracket. The list was only a few hundred names and it narrowed down the search enough for me to find them.

I found this phenominal West Virginia coal mining site through rootsweb

http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvcoal/

Perhaps you will find similar gems for Pennsylvania coal mining if you look through enough genealogy websites.

Also, public librarys often have enormous resources available to them through interlibrary loan. I can log on to my public library catalog from home and search through the WorldCat catalog and find a huge number of books on West Virginia coal mining. These are all available to me through interlibrary loan. You might try searching your library's website to see what is available to you.

Good Luck.

[janetm]

Hi Lola,
Don't know if these will help you or not.
http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.com/county.html
The Conemaugh you are talking about is probably in Cambria County.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~pacambri/
I also have relatives that settled (and some are still)in this area.
Hope that helped.
Janet

[SassyCQ]

lola,

My family were also italian and coal miners. Normally they had to be sponsored to come over. You will usually find the male coming over as a border first and then sending for his family. I used the census and this board (which has been awsome) also Penna has a website http://www.usgenweb.org/ that is of some help too and explains the italian immigration process. Also getting death certificates might help.

hope this helps CQ

[bellas_smile]

Hi my name is Alisa and I am from Cambria County Pennsylvania. My Italian Grandfather was also a coal miner. Our family name is DiNatale changed to Natta on Ellis Island.

[jeromeowen]

The most economical method of coal extraction from coal seams depends on the depth and quality of the seams, and also the geology and environmental factors of the area being mined.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.lincenergy.us

[michaeldi]

The Pennsylvania State Archives seems to have some records related to coal miners. The site is:

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/se ... ached=true

Good Luck!

[scottie]

I am origianlly from Cambria Co., Pa. and the area at one time was very heavy into coal mining. My father was killed in one and his father and brothers all worked in the mines at that time.
This was the one Emeigh, Pa and is now and has been closed for a long time.
I would recommend joinging the Cambria Co. Geneolgoy site. In the past there has been references to the coal mines, locations and such. I may have some of that info in my files and will see what I can find...
Try this site for Cambria County..
PACAMBRI-L@rootsweb.com
Hopefully, this can help...if not, let me know.
Scottie