On 4/30/05 8:51:39 PM (MDT), in a posting to the Kings County Ancestry Board that was 'gatewayed' to NYKINGS-L@rootsweb.com, R. Rossicone (sanfeleboy@aol.com) asked, "My great grandmother Carmela Pietropinto (a Catholic) was put into a Protestant home for girls in the late 1800's (well into the 1890's). Her dad wanted her to work, she wanted to go to school, so rather than fight, he sent her there. Does anyone know the names of any places like this or how to go about looking up their records?" First, the "Rockaways" is in Queens County, not Kings County. Circa the late 1800s, the "Rockaways" was in the Town of Hempstead, then in Queens County (later, in 1898, following the absorption of the western-quarter of Queens County into the new New York City, the "Rockaways' were separated from the Town of Hempstead and remained part of Queens when, a year later, in 1899, the eastern three-quarters of Queens, the part not in NYC, seceded and became Nassau County). Second, and more importantly, you might want to check out the Hebrew National Orphan Home, it's an excellent site for orphanages, Jewish and otherwise in the U.S.: eMail: HNOHalumni@aol.com http://www.hnoh.com/ Good luck. Wishing all a ziessen Pesach (sweet Passover)*, Walter Greenspan * The 8-day Biblical Festival of Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nissan (that's the Babylonian 'Nissan', not the Japanese 'Nissan'), which this year occurs at sunset on Saturday, April 23 on the civil calendar.