Rochester Library Update on City Directories and Newspaper Index

Our friendly librarian, Larry Naukam, of the Monroe County Library in Rochester, NY sent a recent note to inform researchers that their department has been busy at work and will soon be bringing some very exciting research tools on-line.

I have written in the past about this excellent facility, see my previous Blog at: http://ny-genes.blogspot.com/search?q=rochester+directories

Their on-line collection of Rochester Directories now runs from 1827 to 1930, including every single page of every directory that exists, and is available right now. They may be able to add up to 1965 in the future.

The other very exciting thing is that they also will be putting up their famous 85 volume Newspaper Index on-line. This will be a half million item index to "some" of the Rochester newspapers. If you have ever had the opportunity to visit the Local History & Genealogy Department in the Rundel Library you would have no doubt used this excellent resource. Copies from the articles referenced in the index will be available for a fee; the staff is not able to do lookups of the actual articles before they are ordered.


Monroe County Library System,
Rundel Memorial Library Building,
Local History & Genealogy
http://www2.libraryweb.org/index.asp?orgid=1


Directories search page: http://www.libraryweb.org/rochcitydir/citydirectoriestable.html


Other items of genealogical interest: http://www2.libraryweb.org/index.asp?orgid=42&storyTypeID=&sid=&

Central New York Genealogical Society (CNYGS) "Tree Talks" County Packets

The Central New York Genealogical Society (CNYGS) has been publishing their journal "Tree Talks" since their inception. This is a journal of mostly transcribed records of original documents from normally obscure or hard to locate records.

"Tree Talks" has been publishing these records arranged by county in each of their issues. CNYGS now is offering "County Packets" which will include all of the previously published materials arranged by the county of your choice. This is an excellent resource and will help to break down several brick walls for sure.

By purchasing only the specific county or counties of interest, you will be able to narrow your search time immensely. The other great news is that they are working on a project to make an on-line index available. Some of the counties that the indexes are available for on-line at this time are: Allegany, Chenango, Clinton, Erie, Franklin, Greene, Hamilton, Orleans and Wyoming. More county indexes should become available as the volunteer members submit them.

A description of their county packet program and price list is here:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycnygs/publications.htm#countypacket

Membership information for CNYGS is here:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycnygs/membership.htm

NYG&BS name change?

Is the NYG&BS going to change their familiar name?

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society was formed in 1869, and has for a long time been lovingly referred to by the membership and others as the "G&B."

It is now likely that the "entire 15 members" of the newly revised society, in order to match their abbreviated membership rolls, will likely shorten their familiar name to "BS." It is suspected that by not having to print the ampersand in all of their future publications that the society might be able to gain back the 100,000 dollars that they lost when the "former" members exercised their legal rights and held the Board of Trustees feet to the flames, so to speak.

Soon you should see the Login box on the society's home page changed from "Member Login" to "Users and Contributors Login." It is believed that the website programmers are having some difficulty fitting all of that into the same box.

Stay tuned for further developments.