Friday, May 20, 2022
St. Joseph's Home - Searching Miguel Rivera, Moses and Harry Burnett
I was asked to post this by researcher: Mbock7445@yahoo.com “I am trying to find a Miguel Rivera, Moses and Harry Burnett that were child residents from about 1955 to 1960 at St. Joseph's. They were about 8 to 13 years old at the time. I am trying to connect them with another resident that is looking for them. Any help would be greatly appreciated.”
I advised Mbock to contact the Field Library in Peekskill, NY as the reference librarian there would have the latest information on access to the St. Joseph Home’s records.
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I've been trying to get access to St. Joe's Home records for over a decade; i'll try the Library in Peekskill again for an update.
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DeleteI have unfortunate news for you, Nick. As of May 2022, after failing to get any traction with the Sisters myself (no reply to email and a negative response devoid of detail over the phone) I reached out to Sarah Scott, the Local History Librarian at the Peekskill Field Library, who was friendly and helpful and got in touch with Sister Laura Morgan (who has been the email point of contact for this for a while) who said that they are not making any records available due to legal reasons. The Sister did not elaborate on what those legal reasons were, or if there was any procedure to circumvent them.
DeleteThe records are private so they're not subject to FOIA requests, and I'm not aware of duplicates anywhere - I tried the Catholic Charities of NY who said to try the Sisters or the court system. I tried the Archives of the Archdiocese of NY who said they have no records and everything is held by the Sisters. I'm not sure what happened here, since St. Joseph's was supposedly placed under the Division of Children of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York in 1920, yet neither modern incarnation of either organization has any St. Joseph's records or claims any relationship to it at all. Perhaps no one was in the practice of making copies back then, or perhaps they purged their records at some point. I know that much of the Sister's records were destroyed in a fire in ~1978-1980 - yearbooks, report cards, scrapbooks, class photos, etc, were all in the attic of the schoolhouse. Very few survived and are in a little museum on their property which is closed due to COVID. I believe their other records have also been damaged: a newspaper story describing boiler problems and leaks in 2016 (https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/peekskill/2016/11/17/peekskill-nuns-go-online-donations-repair-boilers/93886730/) stated "there are water leaks in the records and archives rooms." So I've given up on this - no one's talking and all other avenues are dead ends.
That said, both you and researcher Mbock7445@yahoo.com may wish to reach out to Carmen Velez (cmvelez45@gmail.com), as she is involved with a Children of St. Joseph's Alumni group, and may be able to help or provide some guidance. Not with records, but with people. I know there's a facebook group, although I haven't been able to find it - it may be private. They used to have a yahoo group, but yahoo ended the group feature.
Basically, since the sisters can't or won't help, the best bet for personal connections and knowledge is that alumni group, and the best bet for research is the Westchester County Archives. While they did not have anything directly relating to St. Joseph's in my case, they did have some naturalization records and an index entry that pointed me to the Westchester County Clerk's Office's Legal Division which had a court document explaining my grandfather's name change in 1934. I'd also suggest checking out the NYS Census if your ancestors/relatives were in the home during the years it was taken - here's an example page showing what you may learn: https://www.westchesterarchives.com/ht/muni/wca/census.html
Nick, if you do ever get access to St. Joseph's Home for Children records, please post everywhere and tell everyone - I believe there are far more genealogists than just me hoping to see them. My paternal grandfather Michael Joseph Martucci and his siblings; Joseph Ralph Martucci, Lucy Josephine Martucci, and Yolanda Cecilia Martucci were all at St. Joe's in the 1920's after their father died, and it's a period of their lives I have almost no record of or information about.
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