Newspaper Database: Troy (N.Y.) 1834-38

I’m quite excited, and not just because it’s the second time in as many weeks that I’ve managed to sneak a reference to the Whig Party into the blog. The Troy Irish Genealogy Society has a new addition to its Troy Newspaper Project:

The Troy (N.Y.) Daily Whig, Deaths and Marriages, 1834-1838

This is the sixth data set added to the newspaper collection, and includes 821 reports of deaths and the names of 1,749 brides and grooms. All of it is from a period that considerably predates 1880, when civil registration became law in New York State.

Project coordinator Bill McGrath shared these highlights:

• Most of the records are from the Capital District area, i.e., Troy and neighboring cities such as Albany, Watervliet (West Troy) and Schenectady.

• A significant number of records came from nearby states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey.

• In the next few months, the society plans to add more of the 28,000 death and marriage records reported in 40 years of the Troy Daily Whig from  1839-78. They’re also working on a database of 4,000 burial records from St. Mary’s Cemetery in Troy.

New: Rensselaer County (NY) Surrogate Court Index

The volunteers of the Troy (N.Y.) Irish Genealogy Society (TIGS) have added another link to an impressive chain of database projects: a Surrogate Court Index for Rensselaer County, N.Y. covering 1786-1917. A nice gift just in time for the holidays.

Here are the details from the society:

ANNOUNCING NEW DATABASE
RENSSELAER COUNTY, NEW YORK
SURROGATE COURT INDEX
1786-1917
A. An index of 31,325 Rensselaer County Surrogate Court Records from 1786 to 1917 has now been added to the Troy Irish Genealogy (TIGS) website. These records, especially those prior to 1880 will be of great interest to genealogy researchers. The information in this data base was copied from a file in the Rensselaer County Historical Society, 57 Second Street, Troy, New York.
B. To view these records go to the Troy Irish Genealogy website at: www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/ and click on  PROJECTS and then click on RENSSELAER COUNTY SURROGATE COURT INDEX. It should be noted that these records, like most of the TIGS data series, cover the general population in the area and are NOT restricted to Irish surnames.

C.  For each name in the on-line index there is a Surrogate Court Record folder that may contain various original source documents such as Wills, Letters of Administration, Guardianship Papers, Invoice of Property, Depositions Concerning a Person’s Death, etc.  The on-line index shows the following information for each record which may help you identify those records that will be of interest to you:

1.  NAME – Last, first, middle name or initials if any, and titles like Dr., Rev., etc.
2.  FILE NUMBER – Used to locate the files at the Rensselaer County Historical Society.
3.  LOCATION – Gives name of city, town or state of residence.
4.  DATE – May be year of death or year of legal issue.
5.  INV. – Indicates when there is an inventory of household goods in the record.
An invoice may be in the records EVEN if this column is not checked.
6. COMMENTS – This column will have an interesting comment for each name.
Some comments may show marital status (bachelor, spinster, widow, widower),
while other comments may show maiden names, occupations, name of
street residence, relationships (wife, husband, mother, father, son daughter,
etc.) and number of children.

D.  Copies of any original source documents that are contained in the file folder for each name can be requested from the Rensselaer County Historical Society.  The TIGS website has a PRINTABLE FORM that can be used when requesting copies from RCHS. For each request there is a $5.00 fee which will cover RCHS’s cost of locating and pulling a singular file folder from the archives.  After the file folder is located, RCHS will contact the requester about the contents of the file to see which documents they want copied at a cost of .25 cents per page plus postage for mailing.

E.  Hopefully this new on-line index, along with the many other TIGS projects will be useful to Troy area genealogy researchers.

Regards,

Bill McGrath
TIGS Project Coordinator
Clifton Park, NY

Follow Friday: ConnorsGenealogy.com

Listen, I like Ancestry.com just fine, but every once in a while I get a little bug-eyed at how much it just keeps growing and growing, merging  into everything that lies in its path. Some days it’s hard not to feel like Steve McQueen and friends confronting the Blob outside that funky 1950s movie theater.

I continue to poke and prod at Ancestry’s sprawling holdings — not only the obvious stuff like censuses, but at esoterica like the family histories, church histories and old society programs squirreled away in the card catalog. However, I freely admit there are days when the sheer volume of material (and quirky search engine) overwhelm me.

That’s when I’m grateful that it is still possible to find online repositories that are focused and personal labors of love, like ConnorsGenealogy.

This is a site maintained by California researcher Pat Connors, and once I get past that fact I honestly don’t know where to begin, there is such a variety of well-organized information here. On the home page, there are regular updates about what’s new and what’s coming up, a very good starting point.

If you are interested in Irish research, this is a great place to visit. There are photos and townland maps, arranged by county. There are also baptisms and marriage listings for Connors/O’Connors and various other surname interests of Pat’s, and even if you’re not related, you’d be surprised what might be in there. For instance, I don’t think I’m related to Pat, but because there happens to be a Troy, N.Y. section to the site, I stumbled across a date for my great-great-grandfather’s declaration of intent.

But even without that, I’d love this site for its wealth of general information about Ireland, its surname registries and the energy that bounces through the entire endeavor. Sites like this have the real-person touch that can help a beginner chart a path that takes them beyond the index-searching stage. Which is where we all need to go, sooner or later.

Deaths and Marriages: A Troy, N.Y. Newspaper Index

Bill McGrath of the Troy Irish Genealogy Society (TIGS) recently announced another exciting indexing project: a compilation of death and marriage notices in a variety of area newspapers. The project volunteers will transcribe an extensive listing covering 1812-1885. This is a significant time frame in that it predates civil vital records registration in New York State.

If you have relatives you’re researching in the Capital District, this database will be worth exploring. The names in the records are not exclusively Troy residents; the newspapers covered surrounding towns, and there are mentions of people from counties throughout New York State, as well as Vermont and Massachusetts.

The original information was compiled in the 1930s by the Philip Schuyler Chapter of the DAR, with funding from the federal Works Progress Administration — a New Deal agency that enabled important public works projects nationwide.

The first records are already up at the TIGS site and consist of 608 death records and 1,152 marriage records published in The Troy Post from Sept. 1, 1812 through July 1, 1823.

Read on for the complete news release from TIGS:

Links, 7.12.10

Crafty connections: An unusual chance meeting: Guy gets dragged to a craft show by his wife, spots a family tree quilt on display, realizes he’s working on the same lines. Who knew? The quilter, Nancy Frantz of Marine City, Mich., called her creation the Family Forest Quilt. (What a great idea, by the way.) Bill Saunders spotted the quilt during his unenthusiastic tour of the craft show and realized one of the family lines on it matched a line he was researching. See? Craft shows are good for you!

In-deed: I liked this guide to researching with deeds. Julie Miller explains why they are a support beam of solid genealogy research, and how to mine them for important information. One interesting point: Deeds are not always recorded at the exact time of the land transaction. Miller cites an example from her research in which a deed was recorded decades after the fact.

Troy, NY marriages: The Troy Times-Record reports that early 20th-century marriage records from Troy, NY — more than 30,000 of them — are now available online due to the efforts of the Troy Irish Genealogy Society. Visit the TIGS site to view the records, which span 1908-1935. Another praiseworthy partnership between volunteers and public record repositories.

Army abbreviations, decoded: Those with ancestors in the Canadian military might enjoy this article on Canadian military abbreviations. If you are researching someone with something like  “11thlFofC” next to their name, check it out.

Off topic, but important: Finally, I know a lot of us are on the road, having fun in the sun and playing in the water. Read this post about how people in danger of drowning don’t look the way they do in the movies. The author compellingly notes that it’s possible to be literally steps away from a person about to go under and not realize they’re in trouble if you don’t know what to look for. Potentially lifesaving information that I’ll be taking along with me on my beach trips, for sure.

Have fun and stay safe!

Follow Friday: Troy newspaper clippings

I’m not sure why they collected them in the first place, but I’m really grateful to the long-ago employees of the Burden Iron Works in Troy, N.Y. who amassed a treasure trove of newspaper clippings.

The volunteers of the Troy Irish Genealogy Society have indexed marriage and death notices from this clippings collection. It was here that I found the April 1892 death notice for my great-great-grandmother, Mary Haigney, wife of Martin. It not only pinpointed the dates of her death and funeral; it gave the address where the family was living at the time.

Indexed by last name, the clippings are a cinch to search and a wonderful resource to check out if you have family connections to Troy — whether or not they worked at Burden.  For instance, I haven’t yet found evidence that anyone from my family was employed at the ironworks. (Although someone may eventually turn up, since Burden was a major economic player in Troy.) But the death notice was there, luckily for me.

Quick update: I should add that this database was also instrumental in helping me make progress with one of my big brick walls — figuring out where my great-grandfather Joseph (Mary’s son) was in 1900. I wrote about it here.

Death notices from the Burden Iron Works files

Marriage notices from the Burden Iron Works files