Annals of Winchester, previously one of our best-selling CD-ROMs, had been unavailable since we discontinued our CD-ROM business to concentrate on low-cost, immediately available downloads.
However, we’ve had several requests for this classic, which, to anticipate a question we were asked many times about the CD, Annals of Winchester DOES include the history of Winsted.
If you are seeking historical information about the Town of Winchester, or Winsted, or the people who lived there and the businesses that made this an important manufacturing center, Annals of Winchester is pretty much the go-to source. It is indexed — and we have added an additional index of place names that we compiled — and, since it is in PDF format, easy to use on any computer.
There’s lots more information available on our Annals of Winchester page, so please have a look. If you considered buying the CD originally but were put off by the price tag, you will find that the download version is a small fraction of that amount — and has the advantage of being an immediate download, not something you have to wait a week or more for the Post Office to deliver.
So, CLICK HERE to go to our Annals of Winchester page.
And join us in celebrating that Annals of Winchester is back!
More than a decade ago, Geoff Brown, the Principal Partner of Between the Lakes Group, was asked by the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area to conduct a Lime Rock Walking Tour. He repeated the tour by request a few years later.
Trinity Church in Lime Rock graciously hosted the tour and provided hospitality as well as access to their archives. Lime Rock Park provided a highly knowledgeable historian of the track to tell us a bit about that internationally known institution from an insider’s point of view. Many others helped in ways too numerous to mention.
But there was one problem. A number of people told us they would like to go on a Lime Rock Walking Tour, but they were not physically capable of walking the three miles that even a minimal tour would require. What could we do? The answer was soon in coming: we would prepare a Powerpoint slide show of the walking tour, and while those up to the walk could experience it in real life, those who could not would be able to watch the slide show in Trinity’s Walker Hall in comfort.
As we prepared the slide show, it quickly became clear that we would be able to put far more information about Lime Rock in the slide show than actual participants in the Lime Rock Walking Tour would actually get to see. We could include sights too distant to walk to. We could include historic photos and maps of features of Lime Rock that were no longer there. We could include concise summaries of things we would talk about on the walk. We could include photos of sights that still remain that are not accessible because they are on private property.
Ultimately, the slide show accompanying the Lime Rock Walking Tour became considerably more comprehensive and satisfying than the tour itself!
Subsequently, we decided to make the slide show of the Lime Rock Walking Tour available as a CD-ROM. We sold quite a number in that format, but when the time came to retire our CD business, the slide show became unavailable.
However, we recently resurrected the slide show and, realizing we could republish it as a PDF file, could include even more information and photos than the slideshow format permitted. For example, we could provide the old maps in a way that people could study them as long as they wanted. We were able to add considerable information that would have passed too quickly to be absorbed in a slide show. We could even improve on the original slide show by incorporating information unearthed since the slide show was created.
Coincidentally, we had two “real” books in the works. Research for our forthcoming “The Lakeville Crucifix” and “History of Trinity Lime Rock in Context” had turned up huge amounts of information that permitted an updating of the Lime Rock Walking Tour slide show that genuinely improved it.
This is all in the way of announcing that the new, enlarged and enhanced Lime Rock Walking Tour is now available as a download in PDF format. Now 141 pages long, we feel that it is something that belongs in the collection of any student of Lime Rock or the Town of Salisbury or the historic iron industry of the Upper Housatonic Valley.
More information and an opportunity to download the document are on our Lime Rock page. We encourage you to take a look! CLICK HERE to find out more about it!
Here’s one of the items we particularly like that appears in the Lime Rock Walking Tour:
A photo of the company band of the Barnum Richardson Company circa 1900
Among the final items we are planning to bring you this calendar year is some Lewis County, NY material. These two items were originally issued on the Lewis County CD-ROM which we discontinued a few months ago, but are now again making available, but this time, at a substantial savings, as downloadable files in PDF format.
Originally the north end of Oneida County, NY, Lewis County is indisputably part of the “North Country” and as such historical material can be a bit skimpy. We are happy to be able to offer these items to help those who need them.
One of these republications is Child’s redoubtable Gazetteer and Business Directory for Lewis County for 1872-73. Child did these of most New York and Vermont counties, and later expanded into other states. He had a formula for producing these collections of historical material, and, based on this one and other Child Gazetteers we’ve seen, the formula worked very well. Most of the information contained is still of great interest to local historians and genealogists nearly a century and a half later. If you would like more information about this download, please click HERE to go to a page all about it.
The second item is modest in size and of less general interest, but since we have it we would be remiss not to again make it available. This is a survey of local relief in Lewis County in 1906. Extracted from a three volume survey produced by the state in that year, this is information you are unlikely to find elsewhere. However, be advised that this section is short. There were no state hospitals or other facilities in the county at that time, and the services provided by the county itself were quite limited. Nonetheless, you may find that it’s worth a look. Click HERE to go to our main Lewis County page, where you will also find other Lewis County, NY material.
Between the Lakes Group helps you recover history!
We’re very happy to announce the republication of Howland’s Directory of Worcester, MA for 1871, this time as a download.
A few years ago we made this rarity available on CD-ROM, but when we discontinued our line of CDs, it became — as far as we know — unavailable except as a rare book. Now we are catching up on making material that was previously on our CDs available as downloads, and today Howland’s Worcester MA Directory for 1871 came up.
We are aware that Ancestry.com does offer lookups in this directory, but we are unaware of any other online sources for this 405 page volume. While lookups are certainly useful, we think that having the “real thing” at hand offers many advantages that you don’t get with a download.
At any rate, you can read more about this volume, and, if you feel inclined, you can buy it via download if you go to our page about the Worcester MA Directory for 1871.
We are very happy to announce that we’ve made two items of Wayne County, NY material again available.
Previously included on our CD-ROM (since discontinued) were Child’s Gazetteer of Wayne County, NY as well as a collection of Wayne County material from the New York State Board of Charities three-volume 1906 annual report. We are delighted that both are now available as downloads, and — even better — at a significant savings to you.
Please CLICK HERE to go to a page all about the Gazetteer (a must for genealogists and local historians).
Please CLICK HERE to go to our main Wayne County, NY page for more about the charities of Wayne County.
We would be remiss, of course, if we also didn’t offer a link to our catalog. Have a look! You never know what you might find!
Just one page from the Gazetteer. Look closely. They offer a course in “Phonography” which is presumably all about how to operate one of those new-fangled things called a “phonograph”.
We’re delighted to bring you the PHOIS yearbook from Poughkeepsie High School for 1934! This New York State high school was very dependable in titling their yearbooks: “Phois” it was — and this was volume 26 of the series!
We were interested in two particular items about this yearbook — and we’ve seen a whole lot of yearbooks over the years (our “Yearbooks” page on our main website will give testimony to that!) — first of all, the editors produced nice pen and ink drawings of what Poughkeepsie might have looked like in the past, and also what they felt it might look like in the future. Can we simply say that their estimate of what Poughkeepsie might look like in the future was a tad optimistic?
The other was resolution of a question that had been on our minds for a long time: during the Great Depression, did ordinary people realize that they were involved in something other than a minor business cycle fluctuation? This yearbook answered that question for us. In an ad for a secretarial school in the PHOIS yearbook from Poughkeepsie High School for 1934 appeared a line noting that this school was successful in placing graduates in good jobs “even in this depression.” So the answer to our question is “yes”.
We also wanted to note that this was the first project our new intern, Gabby Gladding, was involved in. She did a very capable job on the scanner, and, proving both that she’s a talented intern but also that she brings something else to the game, she identified and solved a problem we had been having with a strong outside light source affecting the scan quality.
If you’d like to consider buying the download of the PHOIS yearbook from Poughkeepsie High School for 1934, please CLICK HERE to go to the Dutchess County, NY page of our website.
We are happy to bring you the Kidwell family notebook and the history of Catholicity in Kentucky.
Well, these new Kentucky downloads are not new, really. The source material is old, because we republish old material that is out of print or, as in one case here, never previously published. It’s old in another sense because we used to offer it on a CD-ROM, back in the days when getting a CD-ROM in the mail was the modern way to get genealogical or historical information.
But as downloads, these two Kentucky items, the Kidwell Family Notebook and Kentucky Catholicity, are indeed new.
First off, there’s some extraordinary genealogy. We were very fortunate to inherit Stella Mulholland Bogner’s Kidwell family notebook. The intrepid Mrs. Bogner documented this large family from its origins in St. Mary’s County, Maryland and its migration to Kentucky as part of the Roman Catholic diaspora that followed the Revolutionary War. It’s first publication ever was on our discontinued CD-ROM, but continued requests made it essential that we make it available as a download. We’ve indexed it, and added a collection of Kidwells who appear in the 1850 US Census of Kentucky.
CLICK HERE to go to the page on our main website about the Kidwell family notebook.
Secondly, there’s the Hon. Ben. J. Webb’s “The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky” [1884].
We’re not overstating the case when we say that this book is essential to understanding the migration of Maryland (and Virginia) Catholics to Kentucky in the years following the Revolutionary War, and in understanding the foundations of Roman Catholicism in Kentucky and the rest of the Midwest.
The copy of Catholicity in Kentucky that we scanned to produce this project is unique: it was owned by one I. A. Spalding — and we assume that the owner’s name was Ignatius A. Spalding. The footnote on page 109 of the book mentions three descendants of Benedict Spalding with this name. These were the Ignatius A. Spalding who married Ann Pottinger, and his son and grandson. One of these men — and we are not likely to ever know which one — annotated this particular copy of Catholicity in Kentucky, making a number of corrections and additions in names and places. All his annotations are legible in the scanned copy.
You can find this one available for free download elsewhere on the web, but we think that if you’re serious about this topic we’ve got some compelling reasons why you’ll want our download.
CLICK HERE to go to the page on our main website about Catholicity in Kentucky.
Bishop Flaget
So, we invite you to learn more about the Kidwell Family and Kentucky Catholicity by going to this page about both.
We are very happy to report that the Genesee County Gazetteer for 1882 is once again available.
This item, originally published by A. J. Craft, is 455 pages long, and most of it is of interest to someone researching in Genesee County, New York, today. While roughly 140 pages of this directory are dedicated to the legal practices and customs in business in those days — which can be useful background information — it applies generally and isn’t specific to Genesee County. It also includes a lengthy article on James G. Garfield, the President who was assassinated in 1881 — which the text calls “…the saddest history of the American Nation”) — which is of more general interest.
The remainder (and by far the largest part of the volume) is of great interest to genealogists and historians today. Included are histories, including names of early settlers, of Genesee County (and of the Holland Patent) and its constituent towns, Genesee County business by type, and perhaps most important, a directory of individuals and businesses in the county, arranged by town.
The Post Office, occupation, and number of acres for farmers, are included. This directory section is 230 pages long.
There is also a decent amount of advertising. These items were heavily used in businesses and were rarely retained, so this is pretty much a rarity.
It was formerly included in our Genesee County Collection CD-ROM, which has been discontinued.
We are very pleased to be able to again offer the Sesquicentennial of Genesee County, NY — 1802 -1952 — this time as a download. It had previously been included (some would say “submerged) in our Genesee County Collection CD-ROM. Since we’ve discontinued that CD, this book now gets to stand on its own, and, perhaps, to get the attention it deserves.
This is a nicely done sesquicentennial book; there’s no question about that. The County clearly organized thoroughly for the celebration, and committees were devised to deal with all the various aspects of such a multi-day event. The book has a number of historical articles that are uniformly well-written and appear to be consistent with what we know of the history of the area. The list of sponsors of the Sesquicentennial runs several pages, and with the listings of the committees, one senses that a fairly high percentage of the 1952 population got their name into this book in one form or another. The pictures (black and white) are of good quality. The advertisements — as usual a useful glimpse of the local economy — are numerous and well-produced.
If you have a historical or family interest in Genesee County, you will probably want to have the Sesquicentennial of Genesee County NY to refer to. You can read more about it (and about our other Genesee County offerings) on the Genesee County page of our main website.
Replacing our CDs has shown up a benefit we hadn’t really anticipated.
Here’s what happens. As our customers know, our CDs usually contained more than one item. However, we tended to title the CD with the name of the most important (our call) item on the CD.
However, when we replace our CDs with downloads, each publication on the CD becomes a product unto itself. In that way, it gets its own listing in our catalog and on the various geographic and special interest pages of our website.
Here’s an example. Recently we retired our CD-ROM about the History of the Minisink Region of New York State (and Pennsylvania, and New Jersey). The featured component of that CD was Stickney’s 1867 History of the Minisink Region. However, there were two other publications on that CD: Twin River Valley, the 1834 yearbook of Port Jervis High school, and a particularly scarce 1922 Directory of Port Jervis (which included neighboring locations).
The CD never sold as well as we thought it would; we suspect the reason was that if people already had access to the Stickney book, they went no further and never discovered the Port Jervis Directory or the Port Jervis High School yearbook on the same CD.
Well, now that we’re reissued the three as individual downloads, we think more people will be seeing these additional publications — that were actually there all along.
Twin River Valley, the Port Jervis High School yearbook — click HERE
That elusive 1922 Port Jervis Directory — click HERE
Of course, our main catalog is HERE, so why not have a look at it, too?
Bottom line: we think that replacing our CDs will help you find things you never suspected we had just as much as it helps us streamline our processes and deliver quality content to you faster and more economically.
