Since my last report of 10/22/05: Chenango County: A few more bios from the 1898 biography book - http://www.rootsweb.com/~nychenan/1898bios.htm 1880 History of Chenango and Madison counties: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nychenan/1880hist.htm Town of Preston Town of New Berlin Another section of the 1850 history of Chenango: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nychenan/1850hist.htm 3 wills donated a good while ago: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nychenan/wills.htm ============================================================================ Cortland County: A few more pages of Grip's Historical View of Cortland: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycortla/crtdvlle.htm OR http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/cortland/crtdvlle.htm The beginnings of a new project for Cortland - a book of biographies written in 1898 - preface and index at the moment. Please send requests for bios with a subject line - 1898 Cortland Bios: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycortla/bklist1.htm OR http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/cortland/books/1898bios.htm I found the preface highly interesting and good advice even today, a portion quoted below: "...With each succeeding year the haze of Obscurity removes more and more from our view the fast disappearing landmarks of the past, Oblivion sprinkles her dust of forgetfulness on men and their deeds, effectually concealing them from the public eye, and because of the many living objects which claim our attention, few of those who have been removed from the busy world linger long in our memory. Even the glorious achievements of the present age may not insure it from being lost in the glare of greater things to come, and so it is manifestly a duty to posterity for the men of the present time to preserve a record of their lives and a story of their progress from low and humble beginnings to great and noble deeds, in order that future generations may read the account of their successful struggles, and profit by their example. A local history affords the best means of preserving ancestral history, and it also becomes, immediately upon its publication, a ready book of reference for those who have occasion to seek biographical data of the leading and early settled families. Names, dates and events are not easily remembered by the average man, so it behooves the generations now living, who wish to live in the memory of their descendants, to write their own records, making them full and broad in scope, and minute in detail, and insure their preservation by having them put in printed form. We firmly believe that in these collated personal memoirs will be found as true and as faithful a record of Cortland County as may be obtained anywhere, for the very sufficient reason that its growth and development are identified with that of the men who have made her what she is to-day---the representative, leading men, whose personal sketches it has been a pleasure to us to write and give a place in this volume. From the time when the hand of civilized man had not yet violated the virgin soil with desecrating plough, nor with the ever-ready frontiersman's ax felled the noble, almost limitless, forests, to the present period of activity in all branches of industry, we may read in the histories of the county's leading men, and of their ancestors, the steady growth and development which has been going on here for a century and a half, and bids fair to continue for centuries to come. A hundred years from now, whatever records of the present time are then extant, having withstood the ravages of time and the ceaseless war of the elements, will be viewed with an absorbing interest, equalling, if not surpassing, that which is taken to-day in the history of the early settlements of America...." ============================================================================ Madison County: Nothing to report. ----------------------- Tim