News for 2008

August 10
The three part series on Gravestone / Cemetery preservation is now complete and online. The Links and Resources page has been updated with inclusion of cemetery preservation sites and civil war related sites. Several additions to the site are nearing completion and should be online with next week's update. The two additions that should be ready are section information included with burials and Postcards. Although the weather has not been conducive to visiting cemeteries, we were able to visit three during the last week.

Corbin Cemetery, Town of Clayton - this was a revisit to review the nearly completed restoration work. All of the gravestones were ragain photographed and resulting updates have been posted.

Elmwood Cemetery, Town of Adams - a fairly brief visit as we attempted to locate a stone. During the visit, approximately 10% of the cemetery was photographed.  Updates based on this visit have been posted.

Lutheran Cemetery, Town of Clayton - the visit to this cemetery was mainly to assist with the clean up of the George Kissel family lot. Many of the stones were photographed for the second time and updates resulting from the initial review have been posted. The photo review continues and we hope to have the final results posted with next week's update. We are indebted to Cathy Kissel for providing updates to our holdings based on family records for this cemetery.

August 5
Many of the pages have been recoded which should shorten page loading times. Although we don't believe anything was broken in the process, if you encounter broken or mangled pages please let us know. The rework of many of the pages is a prelude to new features that will be added over the next several weeks.

August 3
Based on user requests, the ability to browse all burials within individual cemeteries has been added. Currently this feature is only available for those cemeteries that we've fully inventoried, which represents 112 of the 198 cemeteries online. To use this feature, select the cemetery from the Cemetery Collection page, then select the the detail page for the cemetery your interested in. For those cemeteries that have this feature activated, you will see the option to 'view burials'. The burial list is sorted by surname, given name, middle name. We're aware of and are working on a solution to the issue of having to step through numerous pages for large cemeteries.

On the Burial Details page, you will notice that Section has been added. Currently the section is not being displayed. This is not an error in the system. Section information is being converted and should be available with next week's update. Unfortunately most cemeteries either don't have section maps or don't have sections within the cemetery delineated. Consequently section information will be limited to what information is available to us.

Although mother nature has not been kind - way too much rain. We were able to continue work on the inventory Sulphur Springs Cemetery and Lakeside Cemetery, both in the Town of Hounsfield. The results have been posted. Additionally the results of the full inventory of Bishop Cemetery, Town of Henderson has been posted.

July 27
On the 26th and 27th, the Town of Henderson sponsored a course on gravestone preservation. The course, presented by Jonathan Appell and hosted by Eric Anderson (Town of Henderson Historian), took place at Bishop Cemetery and provided a hands-on approach to grave stone cleaning and repair. We are indebted to the Town of Henderson for making this course possible.

As a result of the material presented during the course, the additional pages on Cemetery Preservation are slightly delayed. We want to ensure that the information we're providing is consistent with approved practices and techniques. We encourage anyone interested in gravestone conservation, repair, cleaning, and reading to visit Jonathan Appell's site at www.gravestoneconservation.com.

During the course of instruction, the participants conducted a full inventory of Bishop Cemetery. The results of this inventory are currently being reviewed and will be posted with the next site update.

Based on user input, we are working on an expansion to the site to include the ability to browse all of the burials in individual cemeteries. Initially this will be restricted to those cemeteries with less they 500 burials until we can resolve some paging issues. Ideally the initial phase will be available with next week's update.

Numerous updates have been posted to the Burials Collection . The majority of the updates are to Brookside Cemetery, Town of Watertown. Burial updates over the next several weeks are designed to allow for the inclusion of cemetery sections for those cemeteries where we've been able to identify the section in which the burial resides.

July 20
In conjunction with a visit to Fairview Cemetery, Town of Harrisburg, we visited three cemeteries along Route 12 between Watertown and Lowville. Based on those visits the following cemeteries have been added to the Cemetery Collection and the Burial Collection has been updated.

Fairview Cemetery (aka St Mary's Cemetery), Copenhagen, Town of Denmark, Lewis County
This cemetery has been added to the Cemetery Collection. Unfortunately because of time constraints, this cemetery was not fully inventoried. Only a few of the older stones were photographed. This cemetery is impeccably maintained and stones are in excellent condition and fully readable. Based on available information, it was established in the 1902-1904 timeframe.

Gallup Cemetery, Town of Harrisburg, Lewis County
This cemetery has been added to the Cemetery Collection. The photographic inventory of this fairly small cemetery is approximately 90% complete. A return trip is planned to work on those stones that are in extremely bad condition. Overall most of the stones were readable and 122 burials were identified spanning the 1810-1944 timeframe. It appears that this cemetery is only receiving minimal care and numerous stones are in danger of being lost. The results of this visit have been added to the Burial Collection.

In conjunction with the above visits, South Rutland Cemetery, Town of Rutland, Jefferson County was visited. The majority of the older stones have now been photographed and updates to burials have been posted.

Lakeside Cemetery, Town of Hounsfield, Jefferson County is being inventoried in support of the Lakeside Cemetery Association. We are assisting them with the development of a full site map, which should be complete by the end of summer. Towards that end Section K, the newest section, has been fully inventoried and updates posted.

The inventory of Sulphur Springs Cemetery, Town of Hounsfield and Hillside Champion (aka Champion Hillside) continues and minor updates to the Burial Collection has been posted. Full inventories of these two cemeteries should be complete by the end of the summer.

Because of the fantastic support we've received from many of the cemetery associations, we will be adding grave location information to the Burial Collection. Initially this will only include section identifiers; however as we develop lot information, that will be included as well.

Grave Stone Preservation - Part I of this three part series has been added to the site. This initial article deals with those things not to do in regards to reading and cleaning stones.

July 13
Fairview Cemetery, Lewis County has been added to both Cemetery Descriptions and the Burial Collection. This cemetery lies on one of the historical migration routs from the Utica/Rome area to Jefferson County and is maintained by the Fairview Cemetery Association, 5500 Jackson St., Lowville, NY 13367. The cemetery occupies between 1.5 and 2 acres and briefly, from 1916 until 1932, was known as Greenwood Cemetery. Based on the in-depth inventory conducted by the Vary Family Group, Fairview Cemetery contains in excess of 220 burials annotated on 110 stones. The earliest noted burial was 1830 and the most recent was in 2000. Photos of individual stones are available from Joanne Vary Schwandes [jschwandes (at) hotmail.com].  Noteworthy is that the Vary Family will hold their 90th Annual Family Reunion in Lowville on the 19th and 20th of July.

Updates to burials in Hillside Champion Cemetery, Town of Champion, Jefferson County have been posted. This is one of three cemeteries, the other two being Sulphur Springs Cemetery and Lakeside Cemetery, that we are currently involved in fully inventorying. We currently have recorded over 500 burials in Hillside Cemetery whose inscriptions have been photographed.

The surname search that was initially planned for the site is currently on hold and has been removed from the menu. Work continues on this feature and we hope to have it available by the end of July.

July 6
The majority of this week's updates center on our ongoing effort to fully inventory cemeteries. We were extremely surprised at the declining condition of the Church Street Cemetery, Town of Alexandria. We observed newly broken stones, no repair to previously damaged stones, and a tree limb down over a group of stones. Numerous stones in this cemetery are in serious danger of being lost.

The following cemeteries were visited during the last week and updates to burials have been posted based on photo review:

Grove Cemetery (aka Orleans Cemetery), Town of Orleans - partial inventory
Church Street Cemetery,  Town of Alexandria - fully inventoried - photo review complete
Sulphur Springs Cemetery, Town of Hounsfield - partial inventory - inventory is now about 25% complete
Hillside Cemetery (aka Champion Hillside), Town of Champion - partial inventory - inventory is now about 30% complete

The following collections have also been updated:
Deaths Collection: New additions posted mainly from the period 1850 - 1930
Marriage Collection: New additions and details posted generally covering the period 1840 - 1900

June 29
Updates have been posted to the following areas:

Baptism Collection: Approximately 100 baptisms added for the Village of Watertown and surrounding area (1815-1825)
Deaths Collection: New additions posted, the majority of which are pre-1900
Marriage Collection: New additions and updates to existing entries, the majority of which are pre-1900
Sulphur Springs Cemetery, Town of Hounsfield: Updates posted as the result of recent visit, most burials in Section C
Brookside Cemetery, Town of Watertown: Updates posted on partial inventory of Section U
Orleans Cemetery (Orleans Four Corners Cemetery), Town of Orleans: partial inventory completed and posted
Grove Cemetery (aka Orleans Cemetery), Town of Orleans: Partial inventory with updates posted to approximately 500 burials

June 22
Baptism Collection updated with baptisms covering the period 1803 to 1815 for the Village of Watertown and surrounding area. The total number of baptisms on line has nearly doubled and it should grow significantly over the next several weeks as transcription of original data continues.

Marriage Collection continues to expand with both new entries and more detail being added to existing data.

Burials have been updated for the following cemeteries:
- Adams State Road Cemetery (Honeyville Cemetery), Jefferson County
- Vrooman Hill Cemetery, Jefferson County

June 15
A new collection, Family Members, has been added. This provides the ability to search all the family members that have been collected in both the Death and Baptism collections and should enhance the your ability to search for all associated family members.

Union Academy at Belleville, Jefferson County has been updated with the inclusion of Staff and Facility for selected years. We are still attempting to locate additional class rosters for years prior to 1860.

Adams State Road Cemetery, Town of Adams has been updated based on a recent visit and photo review.

Marriage Collection: work continues on converting previous information as well as adding new marriage announcements. Approximately 15% of the original information has been converted.

Deaths Collection: approximately 40% of the original information has been converted and new/additional information continues to be added.

June 8
The following is a list of updates posted to the various collections:

June 1
Cemetery descriptions have been updated to correct location and description information. It appears that some of the information didn't completely convert. Inventory status has been added to each of the cemetery descriptions. Currently we have 199 cemetery descriptions online broken down as follows:

Jefferson County: 192 cemeteries visited and online - 105 have been fully inventoried.
Lewis County: 5 cemeteries visited and online - 2 have been fully inventoried.
Oswego County: 2 cemeteries visited and online - both of which have been fully inventoried.

Evans Mills Old Cemetery, Town of Leray, has been updated with the results of the latest visit.

May 31
Savage-Varley Cemetery (also known as Sterlingville-Catholic Cemetery and St Marys Cemetery), originally in the Town of Philadelphia now part of Ft Drum, has been fully inventoried and updates posted. This cemetery was originally associated with St Mary's Catholic Church in the Village of Sterlingville, Town of Philadelphia, Jefferson County, NY. As a result of the 1941 expansion of Pine Camp, this cemetery is now part of Fort Drum.

May 28
On Memorial Day both cemeteries at Sterlingville, Fort Drum were fully inventoried. Burials for Sterlingville Cemetery (also known as Sterlingville-Protestant Cemetery and Gates Cemetery) have been updated. Photos for Sterlingville-Catholic Cemetery, which we believe is St Mary's Cemetery, are currently being reviewed and the results of the review should be online shortly. Evans Mills Old Cemetery has been updated based on continued photo review.

May 27
The site and all of the databases that support it have undergone a complete revision. The most significant change has been to the databases, now referred to as collections.  They have been totally restructured to provide greater detail and more closely aligns with our internal structure.

The following is the status for all of the collections (databases):
- Burials: Completely converted and all data on line
- Deaths: Approximately 30% have been converted, old data removed, more detail to include source
- Marriages: Approximately 10% converted, old data still online, more detail to include source for those entries converted
- Births: Not online. Data is currently being converted
- Baptisms: Not online. Data is currently being converted
- Patriot War of 1837: Completely converted
- Ft Drum Expansion (1941): Completely converted
- Cemetery Descriptions: Completely converted. Additional detail is provided.
- Census: Completely converted with all data online
- Directories (UAB, Business Directories, 1918 Farm): Completely converted and all data online
- Civil War: Online. No change in format or level of detail

The following items are either currently not online or are not working correctly:
Surname Search: Currently not available. Implementation pending completion of Births and Baptisims
Cemetery Art: Although available, data did not post correctly. Working on issue
Postcards: Implementation pending completion of photo conversions.

May 23 Update of the site is slightly delayed. Due to the expansion of all the data files that drive most of the collections (i.e. Deaths, Marriages, etc.) it is taking quite a bit longer to get the data files loaded. Because of the problems encountered, we may not be able to have all of the new collections (births, baptisms, cemetery art, post cards, and surname search) immediately available. Once we are confident that the site is working, then we gradually implement the new features. We sincerely appreciate your patience.

May 14
Major update to Dexter Cemetery, Town of Brownville. Of the roughly 5,000 burials in this cemetery, over 3,600 now have photos available.

Augsbury Cemetery was visited and fully inventoried. The burials for Adam Flath Cemetery and Augsbury Cemetery, both in the Town of Pamelia, have been posted.

May 4
Review of Burials continues. The full Burial Database has been completely reloaded as a result of this review. Significant updates have been posted to the following cemeteries:
- Brookside Cemetery, Town of Watertown
- Parrish Cemetery, Town of Pamelia
- Sulphur Springs Cemetery, Town of Hounsfield

Adam Flath Cemetery has been added to the burials as this cemetery was revisited and three burials have been identified. This cemetery is essentially destroyed and the headstones are no longer present.

Two cemeteries that were previously believe to have been lost have been located. As both are on private property, we're currently working with the owners to gain permission to visit them once the weather cooperates.

The redesign of the site has been slightly delayed as all the databases are undergoing a full redesign so that more information can be presented on the site.

April 4
The Union Academy at Belleville collection has been updated to include class rosters for the term years 1893-1894 and 1911-1912. With this addition there are now 1,717 students in this collection. We continue to search for additional school rosters, especially for classes prior to 1860.

Updates to the site are being delayed due to issues with the software that we use to maintain the site. The result of these issues is we can only update existing pages and can not add any new content. These issues have not impacted on updates to any of the databases. Consequently we continue to post updates to burials. A prerelease version of the remake of the site is nearly complete and hope to have it online within the next week.

March 8
The 1863 Directory for Watertown, North Watertown, and Juhelville has been added to the site. This collection contains information on approximately 2,400 individuals and businesses located with those three areas for the period 1863-1864.

We’ve recently acquired copies of two more class years (1893 and 1911-1912) for the Union Academy at Belleville. Rosters for those two years should be online within the next week.

March 2
Updated the Union Academy collection to reflect course information on individual students. Additional students have been identified in several class years. Consequently the student counts on the main UAB page are no longer accurate. The additional students are those that were only enrolled for a single course such as piano. Unfortunately for many of the years the documentation we had access to wasn’t complete, so we don’t have course data for many of the students. We are searching for a source for that information.

 March 1
The first installment of student rosters for the Union Academy at Belleville is now available. The student rosters can be reviewed by graduates and class years. A surname search feature is currently not available but should be available in the next update. Two additional class rosters have been obtained, one pre-1900 and one post-1900, however the information from those rosters is currently not available with this update. Ideally they’ll be transcribed in time for the next major update.

We have still be unable to locate any rosters for the pre-1860 era. We would sincerely appreciate any information that would assist in locating information on classes prior to 1860 .

Along with the addition of the UAB rosters, the site has been completely reloaded. Although everything appears to be working correctly, if you notice any pages not working correctly please let us know.

February 27
Phase I of the 1918 Farm Directory is now complete. This collection contains approximately 7,500 individuals / families from Jefferson and Lewis Counties involved in farming. The next phase will consist of adding maps to provide a general location for each of the farms.

The Union Academy at Belleville is nearly complete and should be online prior to the end of the week.

Review of cemetery photographs continues and updates have been posted to cemeteries in the Towns of Adams, Clayton, Orleans and Hounsfield.

February 18
The 1918 Farm Directory is nearing completion. The Lewis County portion is now complete through surnames beginning with the letter R.

Class rosters for the Union Academy at Belleville are that we’ve had access to are now complete and should be online by the end of the month. We are in dire need of UAB class rosters for the period prior to 1860. We also have huge gaps between 1860 and 1865, 1866-1875, 1875-1886, 1887-1896, 1896-1898, and most dates after 1898.

Numerous updates have been posted to the Deaths database and to Rural Cemetery (aka. Adams Rural Cemetery). Work continues on photos taken last summer and minor updates to the Burial database is being made on a daily basis.

The site is currently undergoing a complete revision and we hope to have a beta version of the site available within the next couple of weeks. We are attempting to incorporate many of the suggestions we’ve received over the last year. This is the first major revision of the site in over three years and our aim is to significantly improve its usability. Several areas will be completely revised to provide more detailed information as well as source information.

January 30
The Links page has been updated with numerous new entries in Jefferson County. A section of U. S. National Sites has been added along with entries for New York general sites. The Jefferson County portion will continue grow as we obtain permission to link the site.

January 25
The 1918 Farm Directory has been updated with Lewis County surnames beginning with letters H through O.

January 20
Lutheran Cemetery, Town of Clayton has been updated. This cemetery has approximately 151 burials of which 111 have been photographically confirmed. A revisit to this cemetery is planned for the spring.

January 17
The 1918 Farm Directory has been updated with the addition of surnames beginning with the letters A through G for Lewis County. It is anticipated that the Lewis County portion will be completed by the end of the month.

Work continues on cemetery photographs taken last summer. We are currently working on Lutheran Cemetery, Town of Clayton and should have the results posted within a week.

We currently have access to class rosters for school years: 1860, 1865-1866, 1875, 1886-1887, 1896, 1898, 1900, and 1902 for the Union Academy of Belleville and should have those rosters online within the next 14 days. We have been unable to find any class rosters prior to 1860; however, we do have access to a list of most of the graduates for the majority of school years. We would sincerely appreciate any assistance in locating class rosters for the missing school terms, especially for any prior to 1860.

January 10
Updates were posted to burials in the following cemeteries:
- Sunnyside Cemetery, Town of Champion, Jefferson County
- Walton Street Cemetery, Town of Alexandria, Jefferson County
- Wells Cemetery, Town of Lyme, Jefferson County
- Wood Family Cemetery, Town of Rodman, Jefferson County
- Woodville Cemetery, Town of Ellisburg, Jefferson County