The following message was recently posted to the Troy Irish Genealogy mailing list. As it may be of interest to Rensselaer County list members who are not on the TIGS list, I am now posting it to the Rensselaer County list. Also, for anyone interested, the address for the TIGS website is: www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/ Bill McGrath Clifton Park, NY (As a genealogy researcher we think of birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, as the bare bones of an ancestors record. What the individual did in life, what were the accomplishments, what sacrifices were made, I think add "flesh" to that ancestors bones and give us a better picture of that individual we never knew. If you look at the various TIGS projects on line, you will see that approximately seven of the current TIGS projects reflect this thinking. For example with the Alderman data base, we can observe that our ancestor was a Alderman year in and year out in a particular ward in Troy or with the Bank Officers data base we can see a lifetime of service in a particular Troy Bank. These little details of a persons life add some "flesh" to that persons history. So along this line it would be interesting to have some list discussion on the following idea for a new TIGS project. Last year while visiting a son in Ridgefield, Conn., I attended mass at St. Mary's Church and spent some time reading the various inscriptions on the stained glass windows. Lots of information on these memorials. Family names, individual names of family members, some dates of death, etc. I thought then that this would be an interesting idea for a TIGS data base on the various memorials in Troy area churches. If your families ancestors scrimped and saved to donate a church memorial which carries the family name wouldn't; you like to know about it? Does this information add "flesh" to that ancestors bones? As many list members know, over the years Troy has seen Holy Trinity Church, St. Lawrence's Church and St. Jean deBaptiste Church all closed. If there were family names on memorials in these churches are they still there or have they been removed? I know the names from my family's church, St. Michael's, are long gone as the original building was destroyed by fire in the 1970's. With the recent announcement of the possible closing of the following churches in Troy, how many more memorials with our ancestors names will be lost? List of Troy Churches From The Albany Times Union: St. Mary's Church St. Paul the Apostle Church St. Peter's Church St. Francis de Sales Church St. William's Church St. Patrick's Church So, if any list members have any thoughts on this idea, pro or con, they are invited to post their comments to the list. Regards, Bill McGrath TIGS Project Coordinator Clifton Park, NY)