Columbia County Historical Society

A view of the Catskills in the area

Address:   5 Albany Avenue Kinderhook, NY 12106

Phone: 518-758-9265

Website: https://www.cchsny.org/home.html

Email: Library@CCHSNY.org
Hours: Saturdays and Sundays only from noon to 4pm.

Library | Reading Room Admission: $5.00

Situated in the historic village of Kinderhook, the society is in a period building just a short walk away from the village commons, which also has a Farmer’s Market on Saturdays in the summer. The research room itself is small, but is filled with books and notebooks on various topics relevant to Columbia County.

If you want to contact them to do the research for you rather than visiting, a flat fee of $25 is charged for all research inquiries.  This includes up to 10 copies of research material and postage for response packages

In this archive are books, maps, architectural drawings, diaries, personal correspondence, scrapbooks, broadsides, business records, pamphlets, programs, ephemera, photographic prints, glass and film negatives, cased images, and albums.

When you are researching here, photocopies are made by the staff only and are 25 cents each.

The day that I visited, I was looking for a needle in a haystack. I had a family that according to a history of Cortland County had migrated from Columbia County. This is all I knew about the Ingalls family in the area other than the specific names and the time period of just after the Revolutionary War. The volunteer at the desk was undaunted by my search and jumped in to help me find any evidence I could about the family and their supposed origins. Even after I had given up, satisfied that the history was incorrect, he continued on determined to help me find some evidence that they had been there. Additionally, he gave me suggestions of other places I might look based on his extensive research knowledge of the area.

I should note that later research proved that this family likely was in the Columbia County area, BUT only in transit as they moved from nearby Berkshire County, Massachusetts across into New York State on their way to Cortland County. The book had gotten the place of origination wrong. They had never lived there. However, the volunteer at this society went above and beyond to try to find a needle in a haystack and find evidence of their living in the vicinity.

Wordless Wednesday- Olana

Saturday Challenge- Ancestors Giving Researchers Grief

Randy Seaver's GeneaMusing's Saturday Fun Challenge for this week:

1)    The Family History Hound listed 20 Questions about your Ancestor, and I'm going to use some of them in the next few months.  

2)  Please answer the question - "Which ancestor gives you the most researching grief?"

Who is that person that gives me the most grief? Is it Leverett Lyman Wooster? Is it Lyman Leverett Wooster? Is it Lemuel Wooster? Is it L. L. Wooster? As you might surmise, these names apparently belong to one person born about 1786. He disappears again between 1855 and 1869. Yes, we don’t even know the years of his life.

We know he married a woman the name of Jerusha. Her family is completely unknown. They settled in Lysander, Onondaga County, New York in 1832 coming from Columbia County, New York. Well, actually I’m making a guess about that. According to a history of Onondaga County, Barclay Wooster did that. This is their son and I assume he brought his parents along when he did that. Why would I make this assumption? The census records for Leverett Lyman show a shift from Columbia County to Onondaga County between 1830 and 1840. Besides, it’s safe to assume Barclay did not come alone. At the time of his trip and settling in Lysander he was all of three years old! I believe we can be sure that the 1832 date is also that of his parents.

These are the vague facts that we gather about Leverett Lyman Wooster. He left very few records himself and we can better surmise where and when from records of others. The 1850 federal census for him indicates he was born in Connecticut; while the 1855 New York state census indicates Columbia Co, New York. Census and death records of his sons, Barclay and Dennis, show that their father was born in Connecticut.

We know that Jerusha died in 1841 from cemetery records. She was buried in the old Presbyterian Church Cemetery about a mile south of the four corners of Lysander. No marker remains. In fact, only a few broken fragments of markers remain for this cemetery. There are no records existing today for this cemetery other than readings of the cemetery from the early 1900s. Leverett Lyman likely was buried beside her. But the marker, if any existed, disappeared before an inventory was made.

The cemetery today

The 1855 census entry where he is living in his son, Dennis’ household, gives us an idea of his death date. This is the last time we find him in any records. In 1869, Barclay and Dennis are selling property as the heirs of Leverett L. Wooster. He must have died before then. The description of the property places it very near that of the above mentioned cemetery. It perhaps even included the cemetery at one time. Thus, we are even more confident that the guess he is buried next to Jerusha is true.

Yes, he’s the one that gives me a lot of researching grief. Little is known and few records remain about him. But, did I tell you about the marriage record we found? The only names for the bride and groom are: a daughter of David Munson married a stranger to town. I pity the poor researchers that are looking for these people. Oh, wait, I know who they are… Sarah, daughter of David Munson, married Ebenezer Wooster about then. We can't find a record of their marriage. This must be it! They are likely the parents of Leverett Lyman! Maybe it’s actually his parents who give me the most researching grief…

The Unknowns

From this week's editon of Randy Seaver's Saturday night Genealogy Fun:

1)    I have many females in my family tree database without a last name.  One of those female first names is "Mary."  Do you have situations like this, where you don't know the surname of some females? [I call them LNU persons - Last Name Unknown.]

2) How many "Mary" persons without a surname do you have in your genealogy database?  How many of them are your ancestor?  

3)  If you have one that is your ancestor, have you looked recently to determine if there are more records online that might lead you to her surname?  Go look for one - you might be surprised!

4)  Tell us about your MaryLNU ancestors with no surname.  Perhaps someone will read it and help you out!

I keep a database that has collateral lines and many non-related people. If a family sounds interested, I’m likely to follow it for a little way to see if it connects to a famous person or intersects with my family, or gets to whatever point in the family that has caught my interest. Many of these families are put into the database in order to sort out who is a sibling, or who might be a cousin type of situation. They are sourced, but badly. In other words, they might have a source that they came off a tree on such a website, or from a book that never lists their sources. All of these are temporary items that need to be sourced and better researched if they were to be relied on for something other than an interesting diversion.

As I have many, many people in my database, there are well over 1,000 women with no last name. I have them marked with “--?--" in my database. I don’t like to use LNU for a surname as I have found that many beginners are confused by that and think it is an actual surname. I have heard a rumor, but never found actual evidence, that there actually is a surname of Lnu somewhere in the world! I also don’t like to use FNU (first name unknown) or MNU (maiden/middle name unknown) because they can equally cause confusion.

Possibly her house or that of a son

One female ancestor whose last name I would really like to discover is that of Jerusha Wooster (7 Aug 1781-24 Mar 1841). Her husband, Leveret Lyman Wooster was likely born in Connecticut, possibly Derby, not far from the coast. She was in New York State-- Columbia County in 1819 and Onondaga County in 1824 from the births of her sons. She was baptized into Plainville Christian Church in 1831 and is buried in the town of Lysander, Onondaga County along with a grandson. That burial is in the Old Presbyterian Church cemetery. Not much else is known about Jerusha.

It is noted that she was older (38 and 43) when her sons were born. Did she have more children earlier in life? Did she marry late? Or is her birth year perhaps incorrect? Her sons both have somewhat unusual names: Barclay and Dennis Kennedy. We don’t know where Barclay might have come from. There was a Dr. Dennis Kennedy that lived and practiced in Lysander during the time period that her second son was born. I assume that is where our “Dennis K.” as he was known as an adult, got his name. If she fits into this family, she would likely be a sister of his. I need to investigate the family further, as of right now, I have him as the only known child of Gideon and Elizabeth (Preston) Kennedy. Could this be the clue that leads us to who her family of origin was? Dr. Kennedy was born in Dutchess County just south of Columbia County and the family originates in Connecticut. A similar path of immigration to that of the Wooster family that Jerusha is married into. All speculation at this point, but if I find that elusive extra time, I would like to look into this mystery further and see if I can discover who Jerusha was!

Greatest Find May 2016- Saturday Challenge

Randy Seaver is away this week, but he sent the following challenge to us in his Genea Musings blog:

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

1)  I am away at the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree this weekend, having too much fun (I hope!).

2)  What was your best genealogy "research find" in May 2016?  It could be a record, it could be a photograph, etc.  Whatever you judge to be your "best."

Most of my work in May has been collecting information from some published sources and getting them arranged properly in my database along with a little bit of work with documenting gravestones on Find A Grave.

While at the New York State Library in Albany at the first of the month, I did look in one book, which gave me no information on my family. However, one line from that book might have been the greatest find for me. Published by a historical society that has done much research in the area (part of Columbia County, New York), their opinion of the records helps support conclusions I have come to:

“Very few descendants of the early settlers are still found in the area and because of the loss of early records it is impossible to tell where they lived…” [1]

 

Page 70

One of those apparent early settlers is a man named Ebenezer Wooster and his family. This quote offers up a good explanation of why we can find him in early census records and little else in the area. Other mentions of early settlers on this page state they came from Milford, Connecticut. Ebenezer came from one side or the other of the Housatonic River, having appeared in both the towns of Milford and Stratford.

It is just a few lines on one page of a book and they don’t even mention my family’s name. However, this further supports some theories that I have been developing on the family and helps complete the explanation of lack of records on them. Therefore, it is probably the greatest find of May 2016 for me.

---

[1] Roeliff Jansen Historical Society, A history of the Roeliff Jansen area : Ancram-Copake-Gallatin-Hillsdale, Columbia County, New York, ([Place of publication not identified] : Roeliff Jansen Historical Society, 1975.), p. 70.