In the 1940s, driving north from Saratoga Springs toward Middle Grove about a mile west of Route 9N in Saratoga County, NY, is Pages Corners where Sodaman and Sandhill Road intersects with Middle Grove Road. At the corner is the Callenius dark gray house, Mrs. Receal’s small white house whose son served in the Second World War, and larger white houses are on the other two corners. Taking a right turn onto Sandhill, you are climbing up the mountain toward Lake Desolation. [Read more…] about Memories of 1940s Greenfield, Saratoga County, NY
Genealogy
25 New Netherland Biographies Published
In the spring of 1613, a sailor named Jan Rodrigues arrived at the shore of the Hudson River from a Dutch trading ship, likely the Jonge Tobias. Identifying himself as a free individual, he became the earliest documented Black man in New Netherland. Jan Rodrigues is the subject of one of 25 new, peer-reviewed biographical sketches published by the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society in August, part of the NYG&B’s New Netherland Settlers initiative. [Read more…] about 25 New Netherland Biographies Published
An Online ‘Oral History’ Archive Documents America Today
In its first year, OurStoryBridge Listens: Present in the Moment has recorded more than 150 oral histories from residents of 23 states and the District of Columbia.
Organizers believe it is the nation’s only digital short-form oral history project dedicated to preserving personal perspectives during the current period of rapid social, political and economic change. [Read more…] about An Online ‘Oral History’ Archive Documents America Today
‘Wall of Ghosts’ Memorializes Forgotten Free Black Community in Queens
In the early nineteenth century, resilient free Black community lived in Newtown, the rural village that would later become Elmhurst, Queens.
Census records, historical maps, manumission documents, 19th century newspaper articles, and correspondences show that Black families lived, worked, and raised children here decades before the Civil War. [Read more…] about ‘Wall of Ghosts’ Memorializes Forgotten Free Black Community in Queens
The 2026 New York State Family History Conference
The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society (NYG&B) will host genealogy experts for “New Perspectives, Best Practices,” the 2026 version of New York’s largest statewide family history conference.
The event is available online with on demand access September 9th through November 16, 2026 and being live-streamed September 18–19, 2026 from the NYG&B Headquarters in New York City. [Read more…] about The 2026 New York State Family History Conference
Massachusetts Moving to Restrict Genealogy Records
For the last two years, Reclaim the Records, a not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and open government advocates, has been fighting to free Massachusetts vital records information from the Department of Public Health (DPH) and its proxies. [Read more…] about Massachusetts Moving to Restrict Genealogy Records
New York’s Revolutionary Committee Records: Correspondence, Safety & Conspiracies
For a century and a half prior to the American Revolution the people of New York had been accustomed to act through representative committees in order to win one concession after another for self-government.
During the Dutch period the Twelve Men (a committee chosen in 1641 by the residents to advise Willem Kieft on relations with Native Americans), the Eight Men (Remonstrance of the Eight Men, 1644), the Nine Men (Remonstrance of the Commonality, 1649, led by Adriaen van der Donck), and other groups, wrested rights for the people from autocratic New Netherland governors and the West India Company. [Read more…] about New York’s Revolutionary Committee Records: Correspondence, Safety & Conspiracies
Featured Collections: Warren County’s Austin Historical Collection
The late Judge John Austin’s unrivalled collection of books and documents related to the history of Warren County, its towns and families has been reassembled as a reference library in the Warren County Clerk’s Office. There, hundreds of books, folders and much more, including documents that are particularly useful for those who research genealogy, are accessible to researchers by appointment. [Read more…] about Featured Collections: Warren County’s Austin Historical Collection
UAlbany Puts More Than A Century of Yearbooks Online
The University at Albany (UAlbany, or SUNY Albany) has digitized and put online over 120 yearbooks spanning more than a century of campus history.
This collection, managed by the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, offers a look back at student life, sports, and major events on campus and off from 1900 to 2014, including also one student produced edition from 2022. [Read more…] about UAlbany Puts More Than A Century of Yearbooks Online
Mechanicville’s WWII & Korean War Veterans Photo Collection
The National WW II Museum in New Orleans is home to about 250,000 artifacts, including more than 100,000 photographs ranging from battlefield pictures captured by military and press photographers to individual albums full of wartime snapshots donated by veterans and their families. [Read more…] about Mechanicville’s WWII & Korean War Veterans Photo Collection
An 1811 Hudson River Sloop Mystery
The following articles about a crime on a Hudson River sloop in 1811 were found and transcribed by Hudson River Maritime Museum Contributing Scholar George A. Thompson. They have been lightly edited and annotated by John Warren.
On Saturday afternoon last, a short time before Capt. Griswold sailed from New-York for this village [Newburgh], nine thousand six hundred dollars (almost $250k today), in bills, was given him directed to the Bank of Newburgh, and by him put into his trunk in his state room; as soon as the vessel was got under way, the captain discovered the money had been stolen. [Read more…] about An 1811 Hudson River Sloop Mystery
Paul Schaefer’s Coming of Age in the Adirondacks
Paul Schaefer’s life in the Adirondacks began in 1921 on account of his mother, Rose. Gertrude Fogarty and Peggy Mearns Allen, Paul’s sisters, described their arrival in the small Adirondack hamlet of Bakers Mills in northern Warren County. The family had heard of this area of the Adirondacks from Rose Schaefer’s brother, their Uncle Frank Holtslag.
Rose Schaefer was an accomplished musician, but she “had hayfever and asthma and she was this time in such poor health that her doctor said she would not live through another year unless she left the Schenectady area during the hay fever season…until a hard frost killed the ragweed in town.” [Read more…] about Paul Schaefer’s Coming of Age in the Adirondacks
Revolutionary Veteran Land Bounties & Settling Warren County
Payment and incentives for enlistment in the American Revolutionary War, both in the Continental Line regiments and local militia units, were a problem from the beginning.
The Continental Congress did not have a hard specie (gold or silver coinage) source to pay soldiers, instead relying on paper money. That paper money, without any source of backing, soon became worthless. A method of rewarding soldiers for service had to be found. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Veteran Land Bounties & Settling Warren County
Two Kettles Together: Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen
Tyonajanegan, who Europeans called Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen or Two Kettles Together, was a mother of four who took up arms alongside her husband as their Oneida Nation chose to support the colonists in the American Revolution.
Almost nothing is known about her early life, although at least one family historian reports that she was “taken prisoner with her sister Katy from the Shawanoes, & remained with the Mohawks.”
However, she and her husband and his family had significant roles in early New York history. [Read more…] about Two Kettles Together: Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen
Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
In 1777, brothers William and Benjamin Frank enlisted in the Second Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army. Freeborn men of color, they gambled that military service would earn them what freedom alone had not: equality, land, and a better future.
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, historian Shirley Green draws on genealogical research rooted in her own family history to reveal what daily life looked like for free Black soldiers in the Continental Army and in Revolutionary Rhode Island. [Read more…] about Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
Historic Saranac Lake Launches New Wiki Website
Historic Saranac Lake has moved their wiki website of local history to a new platform that is more reliable and easier to use.
Historic Saranac Lake Archivist/Curator Chessie Monks-Kelly led the project to move the wiki to a new host to ensure the over 8,000 pages of local history would continue to be available to the public. [Read more…] about Historic Saranac Lake Launches New Wiki Website
Forgotten Stories of People of Color in Northern New York
A new digital project is documenting the forgotten stories of people of color in Northern New York. Jacqueline Madison, President of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association has created a website to share stories she has uncovered of working-class people of color in the Adirondack and Lake Champlain regions.
The new website, jaqcalinfo.com, chronicles the history of individuals who lived, loved, and thrived in the North Country. [Read more…] about Forgotten Stories of People of Color in Northern New York
Anne Vanderbilt: Three Husbands, Four Children, and One Sutton Place
On July 22, 1920, with his wife, daughter, and two sons at his bedside, railroad tycoon and financier William Kissam “Willie” Vanderbilt I, grandson of the legendary Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, died in Paris at the age of 70. His widow soon set out to make a new life for herself. For the third time.
Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd Vanderbilt (1861 – 1940) had a knack for choosing husbands and an independent, public-minded spirit – in the words of author Alfred Allan Lewis, “a dutiful Victorian daughter, who, through successive widowhoods, married better and better.” But a simple gold digger she was not. [Read more…] about Anne Vanderbilt: Three Husbands, Four Children, and One Sutton Place
The New York State Historic Newspapers Project
This week Kaatscast features Chuck Henry, the Project Lead of New York State Historic Newspapers, a digital archive containing over 1,200 newspaper titles, 1.5 million editions, and more than 15 million searchable pages spanning from 1725 to 2025.
It’s one of the largest newspaper archives in the country and is completely free, with no paywalls or subscriptions needed. [Read more…] about The New York State Historic Newspapers Project
Revolutionary War Audits (1775-1785) Being Digitized
A new digitization project funded by the New York State’s Daughters of the American Revolution has begun on recently rediscovered records.
The project involves digitization and development of educational materials for the New York State Archives’ earliest (1775-1785) of the Journals of the Auditor General, 1775-1794. [Read more…] about Revolutionary War Audits (1775-1785) Being Digitized