Indexing project uncovers interesting tales, missing records
By James Moate Endeavor News

If you've spent any significant time in Emporium over the past several years, you've undoubtedly seen Charles Starr walking through town with his familiar brown briefcase. Starr, pictured here pouring through records in the Cameron County Courthouse, has manually reproduced nearly every Cameron County record, datiing back to 1861.

So just who is that tall lanky man who is often seen walking the sidewalks in downtown Emporium, toting a brown leather briefcase?

The quiet, unassuming man is Charles H. Starr and that case contains information that touches upon the lives of nearly everyone who lives in Cameron County.

Starr is a retired genealogist from Colorado who, since 2003, has been manually reproducing nearly every public record in the county, dating back as far as 1861! Due to laws and legal limitations, certain records, such as adoption records, were only recorded up to a certain date. But some, such as marriages, have been reproduced by Starr all the way up to 2007!

With the exception of a few medical delays, Starr has been on duty virtually every day that the courthouse is open. He has pursued similar genealogical projects for Potter, McKean and Elk counties, but his sole focus over the past two years has been on Cameron.

Starr says he has found it challenging to gradually correct some of the "revisionist history" recorded over the years.

"You get a whole different picture," he told Endeavor News. "Oftentimes, the bad stuff is covered up and all of the good stuff is put forward. But all the bad stuff is put on record."

Starr said he takes a straight approach to recording local history, trying to set the record straight for the generations that will follow.

"I just write the history according to the records," he explained. "For example, if there was an explosion at one of the explosives plants and five or more people died, the company changed their name. A lot of the families tried to sue the companies, but they didn't get anywhere. The families got nothing."

Starr revealed that he has uncovered some apparent infiltration of the county's official records along the way.

"A lot of records are missing in Cameron, compared to other counties," he noted. "I think people have gone in there and either knowingly taken them or just walked off with them."

He estimated that upwards of 300 records are missing from courthouse, the majority of them criminal records.

Starr said some information is probably lost forever, but he is determined to resurrect whatever he can through crossreferencing and exhaustive research.

"A lot of criminal information and migration records-- those files have been ripped right out," he asserted. "A lot of coroners' reports are missing, but the court records are still there. A lot of adoption files are missing also."

What might be considered dirty laundry by some is seen by Star as puzzle pieces that need to be restored for history's sake.

"You wouldn't believe some of the things you find out when you do something like this," he said.

Starr said that the details of some of the death records are difficult to even difficult to read because of their frank and shocking nature.

Divorce was a far more shameful issue in bygone years, Starr said. Often, to avoid the social pressures that might come from a broken marriage, a husband or wife would run away.

"At the time, the only way to get a divorce was to go missing for 12 years," he said, noting that as a result rural areas would often gain new citizens. "A lot of people came here to hide and wait it out.

His research has also uncovered the death of four Cameron County Jail inmates due to carbon monoxide poisoning, with no one ultimately held responsible.

Starr said that he took on the genealogical research in Cameron County, one of them being for his own benefit.

"I'm doing my own genealogy now that I'm retired," says Starr who says that he has tackled the task of indexing Cameron County's records because of his own heritage. "All of my relatives come from this area. I'm related to about half of the county and I think that it's easier to just take all of the records and document them instead of going through and trying to sort them all out."

After his retirement, Starr began assisting counties with their research. He started reproducing records for Clarion County and then he moved on to Jefferson County before coming to Cameron County.

"My goal is to do genealogy anywhere it is," he said.

Fluent in several language, Starr said he has assisted government bodies in translating historical documents.

His biggest claim is that he performed the behind-thescenes genealogical research for Alex Haley for the popular novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family.

That novel later became a television mini-series "Roots." Starr claims that the original agreement was that he would assist Haley voluntarily but after Haley had gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, he gave Starr "a lot of money" for his efforts.

This writer was unable to either substantiate or disprove the claim.

Starr said he has incurred considerable expense with his work, but he plans to continue and will share his findings with the Cameron County Historical Society and others through paper copies and through the internet.

Starr has become a familiar face in the Emporium area He says that people here know him best for his enthusiasm at sporting events and "western lingo" when greeting people on the streets.

"Everybody has been real nice to me," he continued "especially when I had medical problems. As soon as I'm done here, I'm moving."

His next location?

Elk County.

Now that Starr is moving further along his nomadic path and away from Cameron County, his stay in this tiny community, as they say, is history.

Starr, who will be 67 soon started his own business in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1967 At one point in time, Starr Genealogical Service, had about 20 employees. He started he business in 1952 and worked there until 1996 when he retired and moved to Pa.

Starr says that his interest in genealogy spurred when he discovered that his grandfather was the first settler in Mancos Co. He remarked that he had begun doing research in genealogy as early as high school and has basically been doing it ever since.

"It's a lifetime job."