New York
Halloween Census Whacking
With the crisis of my father’s recent illness and the minor drama of my own, I feel like I’ve been way out of touch the last two weeks. It’s time get back into the flow of things. I thought little census whacking for Halloween would ease my way back into writing. So I went hunting for Vampires, Zombies, Ghosts, …
October 31, 2009 Saturday at 6:24 pm
"Open" State Vital Records: The Bad and the Ugly
One of Several Posts about Open Government Laws and Genealogy Previously, we spotlighted several states that are particularly “genealogy-friendly” concerning access to state vital records. Now we wade into the swamp of vital records-access horribles. At the edge of the swamp are states that have unreasonably long (100 years or more for birth records; more than fifty years for death …
March 26, 2008 Wednesday at 10:40 pm
Old Photo Solves Mystery Drowning After 15 Years
A treasured old photograph, a police investigator’s long-shot appeal to the public and a retiree’s sharp memory have combined to solve a 15-year-old drowning mystery. State police in Somers, N.Y., tried for years to identify a body found in the Titicus Reservoir on June 13, 1993, carrying 38 pounds of rocks in a backpack. The man left no clues to …
February 8, 2008 Friday at 5:23 pm
Detective Work: A Misplaced Headstone
I was trolling through Greenman Tim’s Cabinet of Curiosities [which I'll write about at a later date--for now suffice it to say, a day without Walking the Berkshires is no day at all] when I came across this curiosity: Clarence Thomas Delaware PVT 52 CO 152 Depot Brigade World War 1 December 13 1890 March 14 1956 It’s the inscription …
November 27, 2007 Tuesday at 10:30 pm
