The NGS conference is being held in Salt Lake City this week and FamilySearch President Jay Verkler said 300 million more names will be available online this week through the LDS Church’s family history service.

The church’s Worldwide Indexing project, created mostly by volunteers digitize images of microfilmed records from the Mormon collection of microfilm and transcribe the records so they can be indexed and searched easily online by people at home.

This addition of 300 million names adds to a few hundred million indexed names that are already accessible.

Monday May 3rd, 7:30pm at the Fabius Commuity Center

On Monday May 3 Linda Meyers will have a panel of women tell us what it has
been like to be the wife on a family farm in Central New York.

Harvey Skeele and his friends told us about the role of men on the farm, now you get to  hear the rest of the story.

We meet at 7 pm in the Fabius Community Center.  Everyone is invited.  The refreshments are great.  Come  and greet your friends.

You’ve heard it all before, can’t see the forest for the trees.  Well that is the situation in this example.

I have an ancestor, Abram HODGSON (1804-1877) who had lived in Fabius, then Lysander in Onondaga county, and finally very near by in Ira, Cayuga County, and is buried In the Ira Union Cemetery.

From his parent’s bible I had much about him, and even had been able to document through land records where he had sold land to his son Mahlon HODGSON and Mahlon HUDSON sold the land later which proved what we knew, that most of the kids changed the name to HUDSON.

Press release:

“STICKLEY HISTORY IS YOUR HISTORY”
AT THE STICKLEY MUSEUM
SUNDAY, APRIL 25 AT 3PM
300 Orchard Street
Fayetteville, NY 13066

Do you have a relative who worked for Stickley?

Memories of growing up near the Stickley factories? On Sunday, April 25, at 3pm, The Stickley Museum invites you to bring your Stickley stories, photos, documents and furniture to our first Stickley History is Your History event – celebrating the common roots of Stickley and our community.

We will have historic employee records available to the public for the first time. Learn more about your family connections to Stickley. Admission is free. Call (315) 682-5500 or visit stickleymuseum.com for more details.

Have you heard of the Loomis Gang?  This was a family from Madison county, New York that lived slightly more than slightly outside of the law.

Local lore in Upstate New York is often talked about with shock and awe, or chest out proud of, the outrageous acts reported to have been performed by this complete family of thieves.

When you ain’t got nuthin’ you got nuthin’ to lose, comes to mind.  It is said by many that the mom of this group of 19th century Robin Hoods was the instigator and trained her boys that if it ain’t tied down, bring it home, mentality.

You know the drill by now.  You find something on your ancestors in an old book and you are on Cloud 9 because now you have something factual to go on, it is in a book!

Well do you ever consider the source of that printed source?  Do you ever wonder, “Gee I wonder how he knew that?”  Well it would be good to think about the sources that were available to the writer at the time the book or other printed source was written.

Roger D. Joslyn reports further…

Hello, again

Thank you for the many responses to my letter concerning the possibility of losing our National Archives–Northeast Region as an important research facility. The response was overwhelming and I regret I could not answer all the many e-mails. I understand my letter was circulated pretty far and wide and some persons wrote me from other countries. Many of you conveyed good thoughts about the issue, telling of similar experiences, and several wrote to offer, “What can I do?”

This message was sent as a comment on the old version of the blogger blog that we no longer update.  It is important enough to genealogists that I thought we should make a blog post out of it here on the Upstae New York Genealogy Blog at www.unyg.com/blog.

Thanks for letting us know Jim L.

If anyone has any more information on this subject we will publish it here on this blog.

There is a bill in the New York State Assembly,

BILL NO A02834
SPONSOR Kolb (MS)
COSPNSR McKevitt, Bacalles
MLTSPNSR McDonough

Upstate New York Genealogy readers please note, it looks like we are losing another extremely valuable local research facility.  The  National Archives–Northeast Region in Manhattan has been our nearest location to access NARA record holdings.

Roger D. Joslyn, FASG, sent me this letter and requested that we share it here on UNYG.com/blog in the hopes of creating some public influence on the situation.  Roger makes a point to say that none of this information is truly “official” yet but it has been gleaned from various sources that he has.

Please read and take action.

“Dear Friends

A huge treasure trove of historical and biographical information is now online for those of you that have family that lived in Wisconsin.

Why would we care on an Upstate New York Genealogy Blog?  Simple, millions of people that lived in, and migrated out of New York state went on out to the upper mid-west.  Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, and Wisconsin and others as well.

You might have been searching for many years in New York for details, and you should, but actually your clues might be found in information that was published in later generations that had moved on out of NY.

Gloria Waldron Huckle was bitten by the genealogy bug many years ago and while digging into her early Dutch Colonial Roots on the WALDRON Family she became so interested in their history that her passion for history sparked her career as a novelist.

From a recent article in the Glens Falls Post Star newspaper she tells her story to a staff reporter and it is a fun story to follow.

She brings her ancestors and their lives to life with her fictional novels, three of them so far, starting in the 17th century up to more modern times you will see how the families progressed through the generations.

There is an enormous amount of discussion on the internet about using DNA testing to “prove” one’s genealogy.  Well certainly genealogy and DNA go hand in hand however there are certain limits as to what may be proven.

DNA Hand-in-Hand

DNA absolutely may be used to authenticate the parents of an individual.  We all inherit absolutely unique codes of information from our parents.  50% of the code in our genomic makeup comes from our father and is known Y-DNA, and 50% comes from our mother which is called Mitochondrial DNA.  As long as you are able to collect a sufficient number of cells from all three individuals, you will have absolute proof that the two parents are indeed the ones that created the child.

A Partial Index and Page Images of the 1865 and 1892 New York State Census Population Schedules are now Online at Family Search through the Pilot Program.

When I saw this announcement on one of the news group message boards I instantly went to the search forms and searched for some of my ancestors in Onondaga County, NY.  I found nothing so looked closer at the Family Search collection description.  Onondaga Co. has not been completed yet, however there is a very impressive quantity of other counties that have been made available for free online.

The State of Michigan is in a budget crisis.  What a shock.  What state is not?  The myopic view of the current state administration is to do away with the State Library

You can help stop this idiocy by signing an online petition, it does not matter what state you live in, sign it anyway.  An interesting note is that when I just signed it there were only 393 signatories.  It would seem that 300 thousand would be more impressive.  Please sign the petition, do not put it off.

From an announcement by Dick Eastman at www.eogn.com the following in part:

For all you people with Upstate New York ancestors this is an important announcement.  There apparently is a major error in the 1820 U.S Federal Census microfilm for the towns of Cicero, Lysander and Manlius.

The following press release was just received:

Press release:

“For Immediate Release

1820 US Federal Census Microfilm Errors Corrected for Onondaga County, NY.

The American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association (APHGA)
identified an error in the pagination sequence of the microfilmed copies of the 1820 US Federal Census.  These errors relate to the towns of Manlius, Cicero and Lysander in Onondaga County, New York, and were discovered while attempting to verify the location of the Spencer Pomeroy and Lucy Pomeroy households.

This message was recently received from Richard L. Herrick with the request to pass it on.

So to the readers of the New UNYG Blog, here it is:

ALBANY, NEW YORK, AUGUST 31, 2009:

The Herrick Family Association (HFA) is pleased to announce that the Herrick Family Association Annual meeting is being held September 23 to September 27, 2009, in Albany, New York. Richard L. Herrick, President of the HFA and compiler of the third edition of the Herrick Genealogical Register (HGR) will be available to consult with anyone interested in their Herrick family connection.

Hi everyone.  If you are reading this you know that we have finally moved our Blog to this new domain.

To all who are following us please make sure you subscribe to this new Blog by using the orange button at the top right which is for an RSS feed to your news reader and you will receive all future posts in your reader.  If that seems a daunting task just use the Subscribe via Email form and then you will receive at the most once a day a listing of any new posts that we have published for that day.  If no posts are made you will not get the email notification.

UNYG Blog

Well we finally will see a new website associated with this Blog. It is still being tested and loaded up with content.

We are working on building the new site now and soon you will be reading this Blog on a new platform. As many of our long time readers know, the Upstate New York Genealogy website and then Blog evolved over the past nine or so years.

We actually had an earlier website on a free webhosting platform that was called NYGENES. That is why it seemed only natural to set up my email address as nygenes at gmail.com. the Internet has changed greatly since I started publishing genealogy information over a dozen years ago.

This family bible starts with William and Sally (BROOKS) CAPES and places mentioned are Boston, Linco[l]nshire, England – New York City – Williamsburgh LI, NY – Erie, PA and Darien, CT.

This bible was purchased from a rare book dealer in 1989.

Title Page:
The Holy Bible, Contatining the Old and the New Testaments: Together with the Apocrypha: Translated Out of the Original Tongues, and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised. With Canne’s Marginal Notes and References. To which are added, An Index, An Alphabetical Table of All the Names in the Old and New Testaments, with their significations; Tables of Scripture Weights, Measures, and Coins, &c.

Description of the Family record as transcribed of JOY – MACK – FLORIDAY – LANDERS Family Bible – 1852

The bible was badly worn and broken. The front title page to the Old Testament is lacking.

Inner title page:
The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated out of the original Greek, and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised —
Philadelphia, Jesper Harding – 1852.

Marriages

George Nelson JOY
Marid to Mary Ann FLORIDAY
July the 21th 1851

George Nelson JOY
Mared to Hanah Maria LANDERS September 23 1861

SAUNDERS Family Record

Bible Record from Family Pages in Bible purchased from rare book dealer in 1989.

Title Page:
Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments:
Together with The Apocrypha Translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, with Canne’s marginal notes and references, to which are added, an Index… (more)
Saratoga Springs: printed and published wholesale and retail by G.M. DAVISON — 1826

Family record:
Lodowick SAUNDERS and Elizabeth LANPHEAR was Married April 29, 1802.

Lodowick SAUNDERS Jr., and Temperance HALL was Married Sept the 4(?) 1825

As Pownal is very close to my favorite research area of the Old Cambridge District in Washington County, NY I am pleased to pass this announcement to the readers of the Upstate New York Genealogy Blog.

My name is Julie Bright (jbright@capecod.net) 30 Weathervane Lane, East Sandwich, MA 02537
Phone 774-413-9567

Would it be possible for you to post the following information on an upcoming DOWNER-DUNHAM REUNION, Descendants of John DOWNER (1744-1815) of Pownal and his wife Lydia DUNHAM (1785-1861). They are both buried in Morgan-Towslee

We would love to have one or more descendants of their children attend:

I would like to make you aware of a unique website for learning about Obituaries, and to use for searching for obits as well, at www.obituarieshelp.org.

This free website that is staffed by volunteers is quite different than the normal site for gravestones, and obits, in that there is a good blend of information and data about obituaries that may be used for people in need of writing an obit for the recently departed.

I do not think I have ever seen such a site before and when thinking about it do believe that this is a great service and an excellent idea.

—

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) is in Boston and was founded in 1845.

That makes it the oldest and most respected non-profit genealogical society in the U.S. If you have been a member of NEHGS you know that they also have a great amount of material on New York State in their holdings.

The NEHGS has been publishing many free articles on their main website, NewEnglandAncestors.org which will no doubt give you some excellent reasons to become a member and to have full use of all of the online databases that they have to offer. Short of a trip to Boston, which you should schedule as soon as possible, the website is a great starting point and will lead you to databases that you never knew existed.

The above title is the name of an excellent website that we will discuss in this post.

You have read here before about the tremendous amount of information on Michelle Stone’s Onondaga County German Immigrants website.

After asking Michelle recently if she would like to have me write a Blog post about her website, she responded with the following email. Gee I wish everyone would do this, cuts down on my writing time. \grin/

Here is the Michelle Stone response:

Hi Dick,

Thanks so much for choosing my website, “German Immigrant Ancestors in Syracuse & Onondaga County, NY”