Dear fellow genealogists: I have been copying Rensselaer County 1855 census for over 20 years. I have done nine towns to date. I have been privately & publicly criticized for not having “The town of “ Brunswick etc in my title. Paper copies have been given to libraries & acquaintances. No one until ow has mentioned this to be a confusing issue. I added a bit of information from French’s 1860 New York Gazetteer. I am publicly under fire for this. I first started copying for my Philip Schuyler Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution. These copies were given to DAR Library in Washington DC, New York City Public Library and New York State Library. To date until now did I never receive a complaint. I now am highlighted in yellow with red caution that be careful when you use my records because I didn’t make changes when this person, who has set up a directory on the Internet, wanted me to. Also I am chastised for having the same 1855 census on twice. I had done most of these before I had a computer. This was a challenging task. Two wonderful strangers, to me, Debby Masterson & Kari Maunu, offered to help scan my work. This was a monumental task beyond my time & capability. I sent my copies to each. I so appreciate these total strangers for doing this for me that I put both on my Home page. I have copied these censuses over the years in hopes that it would help someone’s search for their ancestor. I fully expected someone would find errors. These old recordings were not always easy to read and I did so try to copy as they were written all these many years ago. I understand fully that because I thought a name should be written different then it is today I should not make a change in the spelling. Every time I had finished one I vowed not to do anymore because it was a grueling task.. Guilt that I could do something nice for someone prefail. I started out copying in the County clerk’s office & then going to New York State Library to also recheck the microfilm copy. The Brunswick, Grafton, Petersburgh & Berlin census I also went to Bennington Museum Library. I was allowed to photocopy the late Mabel Hewitts wonderful collection. She had added some maiden names of wives which I added to my copy. I recently did Berlin after the death of my daughter in June, who I had cared for 43 years, only to do something productive (I thought) while dealing with my profound grief. Whenever I spent time copying these old records I always had to have a nurse for my daughter as she required 24 hour care. I hope I will be forgiven for using this site for my defense. I am so crushed over being chastised publicly without a chance to defend. myself. Someone trying to comfort me recently wrote that her dad had a saying ”A perfect person is a person who has done nothing”. So in my defense I plead guilty for not being perfect. HOME PAGE: http://members.tripod.com/~DERBYSHIRE_2/Janet.html