Welcome!

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This is the new forum for my thoughts and discoveries.  I have been an amateur genealogist and family tree researcher for the better part of ten years now.  I love the thrill of the chase for a date, a place or a person. Whether it's found after hours of research at the computer, on a field trip to a cemetery or the municipal archives or stumbling onto a new person or new information quite by accident, I find researching the lives of my ancestors fascinating and constantly surprising.  

 I have been thinking a lot about a genealogy re-do, or perhaps trying to write narratives about who and what I do know in hopes it will help me refocus my thoughts and efforts. So, after years of collecting binders and notebooks and slips of paper, I am making the leap and starting to organize my people and my thoughts here.  

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The War of the Roses

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Alacrity: brisk and cheerful readiness. I have never given much thought at all to my family's ancestors in context to the Civil War.  I was always a History buff throughout school, but growing up in New York's Hudson Valley, my focus was squarely on finding my Revolutionary War ancestors.  Most of what I know about the Civil War is straight out of Little Women.   I was surprised recently to discover at least four ancestors (I can confirm) are in deed veterans of the Civil War.  And looking over my timelines I am pretty confident there are more.  I finally got around to joining the Orange County Genealogy Society and while perusing their website I discovered the treasure trove of publications they have for sale.  This is very fortunate for me, as I now live in FL and feel so isolated and cut off from the Rockland Room collection at the New City Library.  It is this collection that really got me started in genealogy.   From the OCGS, I ordered Monroe, Orange County, NY 18
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One of my lofty genealogy goals for this year is, after years of neglect, to spend time focused on my paternal lines.  It was my mother's family that first piqued my curiosity in genealogy and so for years, they captured most of my attention.   Elizabeth Cassidy Schuler is my two times great grandmother.  That is reasonably close, I should know something, or at least more than I do about her.  I find her to be mysterious and intriguing and I am determined to learn more.   The earliest documentation I can find for Elizabeth Cassidy is the 1855 New York State Census.  She is 5 years old, referred to as Betsy Ann, the daughter of George and Mary Cassidy.  She is their second child of eight and the oldest girl.  From 1855 to 1870, the Cassidy's live in Ward 14 in lower Manhattan, spanning 15 years they move from Election District 1, to 3, to 4 where I have discovered they lived at 130 Prince Street .  An interesting neighborhood now, for sure.  I wonder what it was like in 18
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Thanks & Giving

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