Ok, since the first one never showed up, lemme try again: My great great uncle was married to a woman named Maria Letteria Cavaliere in 1904. They're on the 1910 census, with two kids. By the time he fills out his WWI draft card, he's paying alimony to her (Mary Zappala) at the Dept. of Public Charities at 124 E. 59th Street. When I googled that last year, I found out it was the poorhouse/nuthouse run by the state (actually I think it was part of the prison system back then, if I remember correctly). Then I contacted the Municipal Archives and was told: "We have a collection of records from the Alms House (Public Charities) but we do not provide research for those records. If you have a friend in NYC, perhaps they could come in person to view the records." So...I'm rather curious about this ex-wife and what happened to her, but I live in California. Does anyone have any experience with the Alms House records? Are they a mess, or would it be easy to find the info? Is it a task one could actually impose upon, say, a cousin in New Jersey? A cousin without any real enthusiasm for genealogy? Tina