To Richard & the List. After reading Richard's message about the duties of municipal historians and what they couldn't do, I contacted a couple of my historian friends and asked if they are specifically forbidden to handle genealogy requests/ The consesus of opinion is that they do not have to handled genealogy requests but there is no order forbidding them to so do. One gave me permission to quote her thus" The duties being: to research and document the history of the town of (in her case, Alabama) and make this information available to the public. Although this includes recordingimportant events of the lives of the people that lived here; it does not necessarily mean to track each person's lineage." So it is not forbidden, basically our job is how far we wish to take. Cindy sent a copy of the information from "Historians Guide A Hand Book for Local Historians" provided by theNew York State Education Department. since it is a rather lengthy description, I'll only quote the parts applying directly to genealogy........ "And, when the social historian begin to work with family history and to focus on a broader network of kinship relationsips over time, and when the genealogist begins to spend time and effort in indexing the same manuscript census returnsthat historians use, it is time for the two groups to examine their common ground That common ground belongs not only to the genealogist and the academic historian but also to the archivist, to the museum curator and to the preservationist. Most importantly, that common ground belongs to the local historian. Suddenly, it seems that many people, bot locally and across the nation, seem to be interested in this turf. Thus, the local historian begins confronting a whole array of new audiences with new kinds of questions and with new needs. How should the local historian respond? There are two levels of answers to this question. One level is individual. How will each historian choose to define the job? This level is the one at which most local historians operate whether by mecessity or by choice. The other level is collective. How will historians, as members of the body of officially appointed historians in New York State, choose to define their jobs? Both levels are important. (The next portion of the instructions include a laundry list of all the very important accomplishments of the local historian ) In short, responding to observed public need and to the texture of the historical record in each locality, the local historians have carried out their honorable and essential function as keepers of collective past in whatever ways they saw fit. For this task, most have received no pay and only a minimal budget for supplies and equipment. With luck, they might have received money for travel to official meetings. But most hisotirans have done their work primarily because they loved to do it, both for its intellectual rewards and because it offered a chance for real public service. So it has been the historians themselves who have been the only people todate able to define the scope and fabric of their activities" My comments...:And I can only add to that, that I believe the majority of our historians do a teriffic job with very little pay. However, there are historians who dislike getting involved with genealogy and they do have a right to refuse to do any genealogical research. I believe that each township does have to appoint a historian, but the funding is usually at the very bottom of the budget and they have to find someone with a love for history and people.Mary C. VanAlstyne Mary C. VanAlstyne