ANNOUNCING NEW DATABASE: PROMINENT CITIZENS OF TROY, NEW YORK AND RENSSELAER COUNTY, NEW YORK This message is being sent to: Rensselaer County List Troy Irish Genealogy Society List Albany County List Saratoga County List Schenectady County List Genealogy-NYS List Irish-NY-Troy List NY Irish List Chenango County List NY-Hudson River List NY-Old-News List NY-Rollcall List NY-Mohawk-Valley List NY-Warren-Washington-Saratoga County List The message can be forwarded to other lists where you feel it would be appropriate. If posted to any other lists, please copy me at: seamus@nycap.rr.com If you are researching relatives with a TROY, NY area connection, you will be interested in this new on-line, name searchable, data base of almost 1,800 records of prominent Troy and Rensselaer County, New York residents. This data base was extracted from Volume III of the three volume set, Troy and Rensselaer County, New York: A History by Rutherford Hayner printed in 1925. I would be interested in hearing from individuals who found this new data base on prominent citizens useful in locating their relatives. You can write me off list at: seamus@nycap.rr.com Thanks to Joan Howe, a Troy Irish Genealogy member from Iowa, for transcribing this data. This volume also contains biographies, family histories and photographs. Joan has volunteered to do lookups. If your relative's names is listed in the volume, contact joanhowe@earthlink.net and she will email you a jpg file of the information. These records cover the general population in the area and are NOT restricted to Irish surnames. The information in this data base may include: Date of birth. Place of birth. Date of marriage. Place of marriage. Names of parent's. Name of spouse Names of spouses parent's. Names of businesses connected to the individual. Indication if photograph is in book. Indication if family history is in book. Notes like Civil War service, Mexican War service, etc. Many of the birth and marriage dates listed predate the 1880 law requiring reporting of such information. A quick scan of the data shows births and marriages from cities, towns, villages, etc., throughout the entire area of New York State. In addition, a large number of entries also cover births and marriages occurring in the following countries or states: Canada England Germany Holland Italy Ireland Scotland Alabama Connecticut Kentucky Illinois Iowa Massachusetts Minnesota New Jersey New Hampshire Ohio Pennsylvania Vermont Virginia You can view these records by going to the TIGS website located at: Troy Irish Genealogy Society website http://www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/ and click on TIGS PROJECTS. We invite you to explore the TIGS website which has been newly redesigned by Jeanne Keefe, the TIGS Web Master. Here you will find local history articles, resources and genealogy research tips as well as several data bases and a number of interesting Troy Area photographs. Also, you can search your surnames in the following additional records automated by TIGS members and other volunteers: Burden Iron Company Steam Mill Payroll Records. (8,236 names) Troy Area Marriage Records. (1,448 names) Troy Area Death Records. (6,031 names) Index-History of the Troy Police Department. (668 names) Bank Officers in Troy Banks From 1801-1891. (299 names) These data bases are part of a continuing effort by the Troy Irish Genealogy Group to make available on line, Troy area records, that may be of interest to genealogy researchers, especially those outside the Troy area. As previously mentioned, these records are NOT limited to Irish surnames. The above series of records were transcribed by 28 TIGS members and other volunteers. Eighteen of the volunteers were from the Troy area while the other volunteers lived in Massachusetts, Iowa, Utah, North Carolina, Michigan, Maryland and California. We are now in the development stages of a major new project of automating the Rensselaer County marriage index. Our plans are to scan the source documents and send a pdf file as an email attachment to the volunteer workers. Data would then be entered into an excel spread sheet and returned. This index may exceed 30,000 names and we can use a lot more volunteers than the 28 used on the previous projects. If interested in working on this project, please write me off list at: seamus@nycap.rr.com and send me your name, address and telephone number. The number of items to be data entered are minimal as shown by the following examples taken from the index: Surname ABEL Given Name JOHN C. Volume Number 3 Page Number 125 Marriage Record Number 10249 Marriage Date Oct. 8, 1918 Surname HART Given Name MARGARET. Volume Number 3 Page Number 125 Marriage Record Number 10249 Marriage Date Oct. 8, 1918 (NOTE: There are separate index pages for names of grooms and for names of brides. The ABEL record above was taken from the "A" index page for grooms and the HART record above was taken from the "H" index page for brides. The marriage record number, 10249, is what links these two records together.) Hope you enjoy visiting the Troy Irish Genealogy Website and that you find a relative's name there. Regards, Bill McGrath Clifton Park, NY