By James M. Beidler
I have never been especially interested in textiles and “samplers” as needlework pieces of embroidery or cross-stitching have left me cold. Since they usually were symbols of literacy and art—featuring the alphabet, figures, motifs, and decorative borders—and my ancestral people were typically lacking in both those things, I usually gave these items a shrug. I was more embracing of the Whitman’s Sampler of candy than the textile ones even though I had always wondered where the term “sampler” came from … as it turns out, the word is derived from the Latin word exemplum, which means exactly what it sounds like “example”.
But my appreciation for textiles as potential genealogical records changed recently upon receipt of a new book by Elam Stoltzfus titled Amish Family Records, Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Fraktur & Needlework—1800 to 1900s.
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