Hello All: I have just finished up a very interesting little project that is sort of a test case for what it is I have been working towards for the past 20 years. I have taken the 1800 Town of DeRuyter Census and have figured out where everyone listed lived (or actually all but 10 families). The list is not long, but by using all the land records I have been working with I was able to find the lots on which people lived and therby figure out the route that the census taker followed. What made this a great test case is that although the 1800 Town of DeRuyter included some 100,000 acres and the present towns of DeRuyter, Georgetown (both in Madison Co.) and Otselic, Lincklaen, German and Pitcher (in Chenango Co.) there were very few people living there. There were only 68 households (two were bachelors living alone) with a total population of 290 individuals. When I did my research I found that not one person was living within the bounds of the present towns of Georgetown and Otselic and that the vast majority of the other towns were still wild lands (other areas to the north and south were well on their way to heavy settlement). This area, even today, is poor land and sparsly settled, but what I found was even more strikng than I expected. There were definite clusters of settlement, principally along the rich lands of the valley bottoms, along the banks of the Otselic River and upper branches of Tioughnioga Creek. These places that were occupied by 1800 were the places that became small settlements and which still survived today as small rural communities, including the Village of DeRuyter, Quaker Basin, Lincklaen, Union Valley, North Pitcher, Ufford Corners, Pitcher and German. Some families did lived in isolation from the rest, several in scattered valley-bottom situations, but three families lived on very high ground at the tops of ridges. This latter situation is puzzling unless they were thinking to escape the sickly lowlands or they had purchased their property without having seen it and were still trying to eek a living from the poor and stoney soil. Please stop in my pages to take a look at some of the work I have done. Go to the main page, then to "What's New?" and check out the DeRuyter Census pages. I have tons and tons of other material, so have fun and browse to your heart's content. The little search engine has finally been updated too! http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyccazen/ I'll be away for a few days, but please feel free to drop any questions or comments to me - I'll be happy to see what I can find (or fix the goofs that you find!) when I get back on-line. Dan W.