News and Views from the Empire State
The Archives and Reading Room at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association (SLCHA) in Canton, NY, offers resources to help the public learn about aspects of history and genealogy.
The Archives and Reading Room features: [Read more…] about Featured Collection: St Lawrence Co Genealogy Resources
The New York State Family History Conference (NYSFHC) will be held online this year, from September 10th-12th. This year’s conference will feature 37 speakers. [Read more…] about NYS Family History Conference Goes Online
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded The Green-Wood Historic Fund a prestigious Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant to create a digitized and searchable database of the hand-written records of all interments at Green-Wood in its first century of operation. [Read more…] about Green-Wood Cemetery Digitizing 1840-1937 Burial Registry
Created by the New Amsterdam History (NAHC) Center, Mapping Early New York, is digital map with a time-slider linked to information from the Castello Plan of 1660.
The database includes information on families from detailed sources and connected with map features, particularly tax parcels. [Read more…] about New Website Maps 1660 New York
I am a fourth generation Sherry owning a camp on Twitchell Lake in Big Moose, NY, in the Adirondacks. with my wife Ingelise. We share ownership of “Little Beaver” with my three brothers and their wives. Four diaries from our second generation have helped to solve the mystery of how the family first came to Twitchell Lake. It turns out it all started with a love story! [Read more…] about A Twitchell Lake Love Story: The First Encounter
The NYS Historic Newspapers site provides access to over 10 million pages of content published in local papers over the last two hundred years. If newspapers are the first draft of history, this is the mother of all manuscripts, filled with stories and people from every corner of New York state. [Read more…] about Old NYS Newspapers Online (Podcast)
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED. The Saratoga County History Roundtable and Heritage Hunters of Saratoga County are set to host a genealogy workshop on Thursday, March 19th, at the Brookside Museum in Ballston Spa. [Read more…] about POSTPONED: Genealogy Workshop Set For Saratoga Co
The Capital District Genealogical Society has announced their 2020 Conference, set for Saturday, May 30th, at The Desmond Hotel in Albany.
Judy Russell will be the Keynote Speaker on the subject “After The Courthouse Burns: Rekindling Family History through DNA.” Catastrophic records loss due to fires and disasters at courthouses is a fact of life for genealogists. When a disaster takes out birth, marriage, death, court, land and probate records all in one fell swoop, it may still be possible to light our family’s research fires — to rekindle our interest in our ancestral roots — using DNA evidence. [Read more…] about Capital District Genealogical Conference Set for May
January 15, 2020 is a significant day for adoptees in New York State. Taking effect that day is a state law that gives adult adoptees the right to obtain their own original birth certificates by applying to the Health Department (that right of access is also extended to the descendants of deceased adoptees). It was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support by the Legislature, even ultimately swaying some legislators who’d opposed such a change in past sessions.
For decades, the only way for an adult adoptee to obtain his or her own original birth certificate was by petitioning the court. Such petitions were rarely granted. [Read more…] about A Historic Day Adoptee Rights in NYS
Two record collections available online offer a different approach to surrogate court records in New York State.
Between 1786 and 1829 the Supreme Court and the county courts of common pleas shared with the Surrogate’s Courts the power to prove and record wills devising real property, and also wills whose witnesses were unable to appear in court. In addition, between 1801 and 1829 the Supreme Court had the exclusive power to prove and record wills devising real property located in several counties. [Read more…] about Featured Records: A Surrogate Records Back Door (1648-1848)