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Lycoming deeds, land records now online

All deeds and land records for Lycoming County — hundreds of years old to the present — are now accessible online.

Up until now, records only went back to the mid-1950’s, but now everything from the first book of records, which dates to 1795, to the current time, is available virtually.

The county has been recognized by Avenue Insights and Analytics as a member of the “Book One” club.

“You can imagine what the advantages are to that,” said Dave Huffman, the county’s register and recorder. Huffman announced the new system at a recent County Commissioners’ meeting.

The convenience of the new system for people wanting to do research was emphasized by Huffman.

“You don’t have to come into the office. You can do your research from the comfort of your home or wherever. You don’t have to come in and go through those old books which are sometimes not easy to read,” he said.

With concerns about the pandemic continuing, Huffman said that having the records online is a “great mitigation effort.”

He said the digitalization helps combat deterioration from usage, sunlight, oxidation, mold and more. Additionally, physical records are at risk to being destroyed by floods, fire or smoke damage.

The recorder’s office worked to coordinate efforts, while Huffman said he at times transported truckloads of the documents to a third-party site to use a sophisticated scanner to port them over.

Afterward, the recorder’s office proofread every document that was scanned.

Since the completion of the project, the recorder’s office has set aside funding to have the original documents refurbished to ensure history is physically maintained. This project is set to begin next year.

Having the information online puts Lycoming County in an “exclusive category among counties” in the state, Huffman said.

“I think we can be very proud of the fact that a county our size has this capability,” he said.

The records can be accessed at: PA.uslandrecords.com.

Under personnel items, the commissioners approved the following at the pay rate listed: Alan Little, chief training and risk management officer at resource management services, $49,705 per year; Casey Swank, truck driver at resource management services, $18 per hour; Dennis Straub and David Allen, maintenance III, facilities management, $23 per hour; Trenton Peasley and Joshua Lichter, maintenance III at the prison, $23 per hour; Persephanie Harkins, telecommunicator trainee, department of public safety, $16.76 per hour; and Julie Vogel, purchasing and grant officer, commissioners’ office, $38,933 per year.

The county will be requesting bids for the Williamsport Region Relief Well Replacement Project, according to Mya Toon, the county’s chief procurement officer. This is actually a rebid for the project, Toon said, because the original bids came in and the prices were “astronomically high.”

“We’ve gone back to our consultant that’s working on the project (who) has redesigned some of the construction work on some of the environmentals, so we are going out to bid and hopefully that will generate better pricing,” Toon said.

The commissioners approved several 2021-22 budgeted items including: state homeland security grant program agreement; an agreement with Air Management Technologies Inc.; an Amendment to Consent Order and Agreement with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection; agreement with Summit Academy; an agreement with Families United Network, Inc.; an agreement with Community Specialist Corp d/b/a The Academy; commitment letter for the Appalachian Regional Commission grant application associated with the Timber Run Local Access Road; three-year software and maintenance agreement; agreement with Melillo Consulting; three-year software subscription; and a one-year renewal security software package.

The next meeting of the commissioners will be at 10 a.m., Dec. 7, at the commissioners’ board room, first floor, Executive Plaza, 330 Pine St.

(Editor’s note: Sun-Gazette Reporter Jonathan Bergmueller contributed to this article.)

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