Annual Report for 2005

The Montgomery County Department of History & Archives, since its establishment in 1934, has been a Mecca for genealogical researchers across the nation. The valuable resources and outstanding staff have made this research library renowned to those in search of family history. While genealogy has helped attract visitors, the department is also very dedicated to preserving Montgomery County's local history, a history that has developed over the past 2 ½+ centuries. Teaching the public on events that impacted the county's culture, society, industry, transportation, education, etc. and recognizing their place in the national arena has been a long-standing mission of the department.

As liaison to the state agencies, the County Historian provides support to and organizes meetings of the county's municipal historians. The County Historian, as Records Management Officer, maintains physical and intellectual control of the inactive records created by county departments and placed in her custody. Additionally, she provides support and assistance with writing New York State Archives grants.

DEPARTMENT STAFF

  1. Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar - County Historian/RMO - full-time
  2. Earlene Melious - Historical Archives Assistant - full-time
  3. Delores Dumar - Clerk/Typist - part-time (hired in summer 2005)

VOLUNTEERS

Without the assistance of volunteers, there are many projects in the Department of History & Archives that would go by the wayside due to insufficient time. Volunteers have contributed 3,122 hours to the following projects:

  1. Indexing the 1875 New York State census for Montgomery County
  2. Scanning photos and entering data onto computer database developed by Data Processing
  3. Transcribed History of the 153rd Civil War regiment written in long-hand by Rev. Jacob H. Enders, of Fort Hunter.
  4. Extract articles from local newspapers & photocopy for historical files collection
  5. Translated & transcribed, from Old German script, a portion of late 19th c. records from the St. John's Lutheran Church in Canajoharie
  6. 28 books (church records, municipal meeting minutes, local histories) indexed

RESEARCH LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

  1. COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT & PROJECTS
    1. Assistance provided to public in the Research Library for which the total usage for the year was 1,799 (Staff)
    2. Research fees were increased $20 per hour after the $15/hr fee had been in place since 1989. Total of genealogy research requests answered was 78, which resulted in $2,947.00 in revenues turned over to the County Treasurer.
    3. Containing a wealth of historical information, our pamphlet file collection is being entered into a database created by Data Processing. To date, of the 650+ files, 135 have been entered. (Earlene)
    4. A collection of 2,237 photographs and negatives that appeared in the Mohawk Valley Democrat newspapers was accessioned. The collection is being placed into protective sleeves, identified, and placed into binders (Delores)
    5. Continued research on African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church that was incorporated in Canajoharie in 1857 - no new information has turned up regarding the church's dissolution, therefore, course of research has developed on church membership (Kelly)
    6. Continued research on the history of the churches that existed in the towns of Florida, Charleston, Root, and Glen. This research necessitates cooperation, which has been generously given, from the historians appointed in those municipalities. (Kelly)
    7. Continued organizing photo binders (Kelly)
    8. Began work gathering photographs and materials for photographic history of Amsterdam (Kelly)
    9. 12 books bound to be placed upon shelves
    10. The Catalog of the department's collections was updated and printed, generating revenue of $305.00 which was turned over to the County Treasurer. (Earlene)
    11. Copied portion of Montgomery County Poorhouse records that were on loan from the New York State Archives (Earlene)
    12. Assisted Supreme Court Justice and his staff in researching the original appearance of the courtroom in the New Courthouse. (staff)
    13. Sorted through collection of late historian for City of Amsterdam, adding new items to our own collection. (staff)
    14. Accessions for the department 122 items given by donors from across the nation - 113 for the library and 9 for the archives
    15. Retrievals of Archival Documents (both 2nd & 3rd floor) - 211
    16. Retrievals of bound newspapers (from 3rd floor) -- 55
  2. PUBLIC RELATIONS
    1. Outreach programming, consisting of presentations, displays, etc. is vital to this department's success. Often, this programming takes place outside of the regular work hours. Outreach presentations included:
      1. Early morning breakfast presentation to group from Canajoharie Reformed Church (Kelly)
      2. Saturday lunch presentation to Fonda Chapter D.A.R. (Kelly)
      3. Presentation on department, Montgomery County book, & Buel's Central Asylum School for the Deaf to Wells House Day Treatment - during work hours (Kelly)
      4. Saturday afternoon Book signing for Montgomery County: Images of America book at Mysteries on Main Street in Johnstown. (Kelly)
    2. Assisted "History Club" from Lexington Day Treatment Center with tour of Dept. of History & Archives (staff)
    3. Requests for information (historical / genealogical / or general in nature) come into the department either by telephone, written correspondence or via e-mail. Requests for information come not only from the general public, but also from other county departments, various agencies (Chamber of Commerce, New York State Court System Historical Society, New York State Archives, etc.), 4th graders learning about NYS history, and media. In 2004, over 350 responses went out of this office answering these requests. (Staff)
    4. As chair of the planning committee, Montgomery County hosted a three-day spring conference for the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS). Held in Amsterdam, almost 150 local government historians from across NYS attended a wonderful array of workshops - to date, the most well attended conference since the organization's inception! As an added bonus, we were fortunate enough to have Russell Shorto, acclaimed author of The Island in the Center of the World: An Epic History of Dutch Manhattan, as one of our speakers.
    5. Assistance was provided to the Mohawk Valley Library System for development of their own outreach program
    6. The County Historian is a liaison between all of the Town/Village/City Historians and the State. The County Historian hosted two meetings of the Montgomery County Municipal Historians at the Dept. of History & Archives. The discussion centered around what each historian had worked on during the previous year and currently, as well as improving awareness of the history in our respective municipalities. There are a number of projects that we need to work on collectively in order to make this increased awareness happen. Upcoming cooperative projects include compiling a county cemetery map with GIS coordinates and putting together a book of county historical markers.
    7. Professional Development
    8. Attended workshops at the Fall Conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS) in Alexandria Bay, NY -- Sept. 25, 2005 (Kelly)
    9. Publications & Writing
      1. The County Historian wrote and submitted an article about the Dept. of History & Archives research library for the "Touring New York" quarterly newspaper promoting tourism in New York State. (Kelly)
      2. Updated article on Montgomery County history for a book of historical county information to be published by New York State Association of Counties (Kelly)
      3. Writing is a significant aspect of any historian's job. In 2004, I compiled a 128-page photographic history of Montgomery County that was published by Arcadia, world renowned for publishing local and regional history books, as part of their Images of America series. This book received widespread publicity. The revenue generated from the royalties and turned over to the County Treasurer in 2005 totaled $730.94.
RECORDS MANAGEMENT
  1. Transfers - County departments transferred a total of 74.5 cubic feet of inactive records to Records Management.
  2. Dispositions - A total of 151 cubic feet of inactive county records were destroyed by shredding after reaching their scheduled retention period.
  3. Deaccessioned from the Archives 5.53 c.f. of material with no direct connection to Montgomery and/or Tryon Counties. (Kelly)
  4. Updated & reorganized the Records Management Policy & Procedures manual that was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 1997 (Kelly)
  5. Attended NYS Archives workshop "Managing Inactive Records" related to developing a storage facility (Kelly)
  6. Records Management Officer was asked to participate in a live statewide teleconference sponsored by the NYS Comptroller & NYS Archives related to records management - declined due to schedule conflict (Kelly)
  7. Retrievals of Inactive Records (requests from depts.) -- 36 (Kelly & Earlene)
  8. Grants -
    1. Continued work on the 2004-05 NYS Archives grant for microfilming assessment rolls in which $18,174 funded the 2nd phase of preserving these permanent records on microfilm and freeing up potential future office/storage space.
    2. Awarded $24,559 from NYS Archives Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund (LGRMIF) to begin renovations on Old Boiler House, improving building and making it usable for adequate storage of the County's archival and inactive records. Grant funded leveling up concrete floor, replacement of windows and doors, interior framing and insulation and installation of sheetrock on walls and ceiling, and installation of climate control (HVAC).
    3. Submitted grant application to NYS Archives LGRMIF for second phase of Boiler House conversion to Records Storage Center, requesting funding in amount of $35,050 for purchase of fire/sprinkler system, shelving, and a personal computer and printer. (Kelly)
    4. Appealed to legislators for Legislative Grants to assist with Boiler House conversion. Awarded $25,000 from Senator Hugh T. Farley to achieve this goal. (Kelly)

COMMITTEES

The County Historian/RMO served on the following committees:
  1. Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce Promotional Committee (Tourism)
  2. Association of Public Historians of NYS (APHNYS) Cemetery Addendum Committee - Chair
  3. Planning committee for APHNYS Spring 2005 Conference -- Chair
  4. Planning committee for Western Frontier symposium - held Nov. 2005
  5. Records Advisory Board - Chair
  6. Mohawk Valley Museum Consortium Nominating committee
  7. Reviewer on the grant applications for the Larry J. Hackman Seminar for Local Historians sponsored by the New York State Archives Trust

For 2006, we look to continue improving public access to our records and expanding our collection. We also look forward to completing the renovations on the former Boiler House and moving the inactive and archival records into a more adequate storage environment.

I wish to thank the Board of Supervisors, our volunteers, donors and Legislators for their continued support of this department and the Records Management Program.

Respectfully submitted, Kelly A. Yacobucci Farquhar County Historian/RMO

Historian Home Page

© Copyright: 2006 Montgomery County, New York