Pay It Forward

On 28 December 2013 Dick Eastman wrote a second article about the Fulton History website – the go-to site for those of us researching New York State ancestors. I have had this site bookmarked in my favorites for years and use it as frequently as Ancestry or FamilySearch.

In the article Mr. Eastman states that Mr. Tryniski, the site’s owner, has grown his collection of newspaper pages from 10,258,000 in 2009 when Mr. Eastman’s first article appeared to 26,108,000 as of Dec. 28. The site now also features newspapers from New Jersey, Connecticut, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

The site is free, and according to Mr. Eastman’s article, has almost four times more articles online than the Library of Congress “Chronicling America” collection and without costing taxpayers a dime!  Mr. Tryniski is paying it forward big time.

This article reminded me of a plea I made early on.  When we developed the 1890 Census for Newtown, Connecticut, I thought if only a couple of people in every locality would develop a 1890 Census substitute, it would open a window into that critical twenty year period in our ancestors’ lives.  That information can be found with school records, grand lists, tax rolls, etc.  Another project would be to transcribe one historic record or ledger to be posted online. What a nice way to pay it forward.