PCPL genealogist Brumfield recognized for outstanding service

Friday, May 18, 2018
Curt Sylvester, recording secretary for the Indiana Genealogical Society, presents Putnam County Public Library employee Diana Brumfield (center) with the Outstanding County Genealogical Contribution award at the group’s recent annual meeting as Jinsie Bingham of Washburn Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, looks on.
Courtesy photo

Local genealogist and Putnam County Public Library employee Diana Brumfield has been honored with the Outstanding County Genealogical Contribution award by the Indiana Genealogical Society for her service to Putnam County.

According to the Indiana Genealogical Society, the award is given to an individual for recognition of a singular, outstanding contribution to the field of genealogy in a local area.

Brumfield has worked for PCPL since February 2011, serving as a part-time reference assistant in the Local History and Genealogy Department. Her accomplishments include establishing the library as a familysearch.org affiliate and helping to finish a decade-long indexing project of Putnam County birth records to make them available online.

“I try to go the extra mile for patrons” Brumfield noted, “as I remember how unwelcoming and unhelpful some of my early visits to this section of the library had been.”

And go the extra mile she does.

“Sometimes I use my lunch hour to go to the courthouse or the cemetery to gather records for family genealogists who cannot travel to Putnam County,” she added.

In February 2015, Brumfield started a genealogy interest group at PCPL. The Time Travelin’ Genealogy Guild meets twice a month and studies a different subject each month.

“In the beginning, monthly subjects were as simple as introducing them to Ancestrylibrary.com, findagrave.com and how to figure out cousins once removed. Since then, many of the members have become quite proficient at researching,” Brumfield said.

Today’s topics vary, but include anything that might help members of the group break through the “brick walls” of research.

“Our next adventure is to tackle the science of DNA testing. Some members have had testing done, but do not fully understand the results. We have seen how DNA testing has helped one of our African American members who was an only child with no relatives left in the world discover her ethnic roots and 400-plus cousins very quickly. She found she was not alone in the world, after all,” Brumfield noted.

She has traced her own lineage back to the early pioneers of Putnam County.

“Both my parents’ lineage reach back to the early pioneers in Putnam County,” Brumfield said, “including Jacob Piercy, who was a fifer in the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment at Valley Forge and is buried on land the Piercys donated to start the Cloverdale Cemetery.

“Another ancestor is John Macy. The first religious meeting in the Cloverdale Township was held at his home. My Uncle Donus was a World War I soldier who gave the invocation when the Doughboy statue was set on the courthouse. My Great-Grandpa Denny was an early postmaster and owned a general store in Cloverdale for many years.”

Her service to the local genealogical community does not end with the library. She is also a member of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

“In January 2015, our chapter was down to 44 members. That was the year I decided I needed to ‘step up’ and started recruiting members,” Brumfield said.

Through her efforts the group currently has 62 members.

“So far, I have personally sponsored 25 members who have successfully joined DAR, including one in Alaska and another in Florida,” Brumfield noted.

Brumfield is far from ready to rest on her laurels. She’ll be teaching a genealogy boot camp for 4-H members at the library this summer and Genealogy 101 sessions through the Time Travelin’ Genealogy Guild for new members or anyone interested in learning more about their ancestors.

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