Fulton History Online Article

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Have you been to the Fulton History newspaper website? If you have any people that lived in New York State in the last 200 years you may be able to find them listed in an old newspaper. I wrote about Fulton History in 2009 and at that time there about 11 million newspaper pages online. Now the website has close to 23 million newspaper pages from all over New York State..

Yesterday, this online article was posted by Jim Epstein. Jim points out that Fulton History has 4 times as many newspaper pages online as the Library of Congress website. Plus it gets twice as many “hits” per month as the Library of Congress newspaper site. The article tells about Tom Tryniski, who is the sole person behind the website. Even better, there  is a video that includes an interview with Tom and shows him scanning rolls of newspapers on microfilm to be added in the future.

Fulton History is a fantastic resource for anyone researching in New York State. Even if you have been there before, you should go back as there is a lot more pages now. New newspaper pages are usually added at the end of each quarter.

Mt. Hope Cemetery Book

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Buried Treasures

Buried Treasures

Last night during the WXXI-TV documentary “A Walk Through History in Mount Hope Cemetery” there were several pledge breaks. One of the gifts that they would give for a pledge was the book Buried Treasures by Richard Reisem. The book tells the stories of some 500 individuals buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester. The stories tell of the good and the bad, the famous and the notorious, the rich and the destitute, the creative and the eccentric, the lucky and the unfortunate. There is even a dictionary of symbols and decorative motifs used in 19th- and 20th-century gravestone design. The 176 pages also includes stunning photographs by Frank A. Gillespie.

If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this book, there are two ways to obtain it. First, you can call WXXI and make a pledge of $75 or more and ask for for the book as a “thank you” gift. You can also order the book directly from the group “Friends of Mt. Hope” on this page for $20 and $3 shipping.

Mt Hope Cemetery on TV

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Had I known beforehand, I would have posted about the documentary that was on tonight about Mt. Hope Cemetery. As it turned out, I only saw that it was on about 10 minutes before it started. “A Walk Through History in Mount Hope Cemetery” was on WXXI-TV. Great nature photography in all 4 seasons help to show what an interesting place is Rochester’s municipal cemetery that begun in 1838. The documentary discusses the style of tombstones and shows some of the amazing  sculptures . There is a part on famous people and also military graves.

If you missed the program tonight, WXXI will be repeating it on Thursday, March 14 at 9:30 p.m.

 

Pictures of Highland Hosp. Nurses

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The library at Highland Hospital has released a selection of digital images on the New York Heritage website. Highland Hospital 1940-1949: The School of Nursing during World War II only comprises 22 images with most having names of the people in the picture.

Mostly formal and often posed, these black and white images offer a taste of hospital life during the 40s. It was hospital business as usual, with the addition of new wartime measures. Day-to-day scenes such as a doctor reviewing x-ray films with a Dictaphone, and nurses assisting a patient in an oxygen tent are juxtaposed with the then-familiar sight of an Air Raid Warden’s Post furnished with fire-fighting equipment.

 

Kodak News; Feb. 11 – 15

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History in the making…

On Monday Kodak unveiled a new commercial printer. The Kodak Prosper 5000XLi Press which features an “intelligent print system” that continuously monitors and adjusts settings to ensure high quality. Rochester’s Mercury Print has been testing the new printer.

On Tuesday the Monroe County Legislature voted to buy 547,000 square feet of the Kodak Office complex to use as a future campus for Monroe Community College (MCC). The only step left to make the final deal is an authorization from the State University of NY.  For a purchase of just under $3 million MCC will get buildings, 3, 9, 11, 13 and 16 and part of a parking lot. The cost to renovate the buildings into space for MCC is estimated to cost $72 million.

Kodak is going to renew a licensing agreement with lens maker Signet Armorlite Inc. Under the agreement Signet would keep exclusive rights to make and sell Kodak-branded prescription eyeglass and sunglass lenses through 2029. In return, Signet would pay Kodak a $30.6 million up-front licensing fee.

The video below is a Kodachrome film test from 1922. It was linked to by a few blogs this week even though it was originally posted by Kodak to YouTube almost 2 years ago.

Proposed NY Legislation Would Allow Access to Adoptees’ Birth Records

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I don’t often repeat posting from other blogs but I thought this was very important news. Dick Eastman on his EOGN blog, says that he received the following email from the German Genealogy Group on Long Island:

The Adoptee Bill(s) of Rights would repeal the 1935 legislation that sealed in perpetuity the original birth certificates, and thus the original identities, of anyone adopted in the state of New York.

The Bill permits an adopted adult to access birth certificates and medical histories when they reach the age of 18. It also creates a contact preference to be filed by the birth parents.

We must get calls going to the members of the assembly & senate.

Please call your local assembly member and senator and as many from the below links as you can. Anyone can call even if not in New York State so encourage your out-of-state friends and family to call as well. The more calls the better.

This link is a list of all assembly members where you can find their contact info: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/
The assembly Bill is A909

This is a directory of the New York State Senators. http://www.nysenate.gov
The Senate Bill number is S2490

Please call assembly member Richard Gottfried phone # 518 455-5939 and ask him to put bill A909 on the health committee agenda for a vote. Also call Speaker Sheldon Silver and ask him to move bill A909 to the Assembly floor for a vote. 518 455-4941.

At a talk to the Rochester Genealogical Society last year about adoption records I ended my presentation by saying that I doubt NY State would ever open adoption records. This legislation would open records that have been closed to all adoptees.

 

 

 

 

Kodak News; Feb. 4 – 8

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On Tuesday, a Rochester man was arrested on the charge of making false bomb threats against Kodak between September and January. The man is charged with making 21 calls to 911 claiming that a terrorist was going to bomb the Kodak Corporation. For each of those calls Police and fire departments had to respond. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.

Top Songs of 1963; #3

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The next song to hit the top of the record charts in 1963 was Hey Paula by Paul and Paula. The song’s writer, Ray Hildebrand (Paul), was a student at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas. “Paula” was Jill Jackson, the niece of the owner of the boarding house where Ray lived. The song was originally released as Paul and Paula but was later changed to Hey Paula for national release.

There were a few other songs released by Paul and Paula but the best they could do on the music charts was Young Lovers which ended up in the #6 spot on the record charts.

Download Paul and Paula songs (for a small fee) from Amazon.com.

1855 NY Census Index

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FamilySearch has an index to the 1855 New York State census to their vast collection of records.

The 1855 census was the first State census that listed every name of the people in a family. Plus it also asks the relationship of each individual to the head of household. Also if a person was born in New York State then they were asked in what NY County they were born. Another question asked in the 1855 census is how long you lived in this town. This census is very helpful for NY State families.

FamilySearch says that the 1855 census isn’t complete. That is because these census records were the property of each county and over the years some of the records were lost or destroyed.. I had to do some digging to find out what counties are missing. It turns out that these counties are not in the 1855 index: Bronx, Clinton, Dutchess, Genesee, Hamilton, Nasssau, Putnam, Queens, St. Lawrence, Seneca, Suffolk, Tompkins, Westchester and Wyoming Counties.

This link will take to the search page for the 1855 New York census.

FamilySearch and OCLC Partnership

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FamilySearch and OCLC have announced a new agreement that will benefit both organizations. FamilySearch has a vast catalog of materials that will be added to OCLC’s online WorldCat library catalog. FamilySearch will also use WorldCat results in search results returned by FamilySearch genealogy services. FamilySearch has been using the OCLC library management system since 1996 to manage the vast collection.

WorldCat is a cooperatively-created catalog of items held in thousands of libraries worldwide, including public, academic, state and national libraries; archives; and historical societies. One of the advantages of WorldCat is that it tells you where the nearest copy of a book or other item is available.

Want more details? View the FS press release.