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What's New at the Archives

We’ve been busy working hard to make the Archives accessible to you!!!

New Records Donation Program Initiative

The Records Donation Program is designed to encourage the rightful return of official county records, especially those of historical value, and to recognize their donors. Official county records are those that were at one time, filed or recorded by the County Clerk’s Office.

Records Donation Received
County Clerk Nina Postupack is pleased to recognize Diane Lindsey, Joan Larkin Dresow, Arthur A. Davis III, Robert E. Davis, Stephen J. Davis, and William L. Davis. In memory of their parents, Judge Arthur A. Davis Jr. and Jean Larkin Davis, they have donated Kingston Town Court Minutes 1718-1724; Court of Common Pleas & Court of General Sessions Minutes 1705-1712 & 1729-1737; and Proceedings of the Supervisors & Justices’ Meetings 1700-1710 to the Archives of the County Clerk’s Office.

New Award

New York State Board of Regents and the State Archives Award Ulster County the 2004 Annual Archives Award for Excellence in the Educational Use of Local Government Records

The Board of Regents and the State Archives selected the Ulster County Clerk’s Office to receive the 2004 Annual Archives Award for Excellence in the Educational Use of Local Government Records. This award is presented annually to a local government that has demonstrated outstanding initiative, leadership, and creativity in encouraging and promoting the use of local government historical records for elementary and secondary education.

The award was presented to Laurie Hancock, Deputy County Clerk representing the County Clerk’s Office at a luncheon ceremony at the State Education Building in Albany on November 4, 2004.

The award commends Ulster County for the development of a superior educational resource, Who’ll Weep for Me?: A Teachers Guide to The Rise of the Poorhouse System in Ulster County.  This Teaching Guide was developed by Susan Stessin-Cohn utilizing records belonging to the Ulster County Clerk’s Office.  Using this resource, students are able to reach the stated goals of the New York State Learning Standards by acquiring a knowledge base in local history (especially of an underrepresented part of the population); develop skills of analysis and interpretation of primary source documents; and develop skills of moral reasoning in the context of social justice.

The annual Archives Awards program recognizes outstanding efforts in archives and records management work in New York State by a broad range of individuals and organizations.

New Publication

New Award Winning Document Based Teaching Packet

“The Builders of Ulster County-A Curriculum on the History of Immigration”

This Teaching Packet won the 2006 Lower Hudson Conference Award for Excellence. Students use real documents to follow not only the collective history of the region but also the unique journeys of individual people who came to Ulster County.

New Online Exhibits

• 1875 Beers Atlas

  County Atlas of Ulster, From Recent and Actual Surveys and Records under the Superintendence of F. W. Beers. Published by Walker and Jewitt, 1875. Digital images of the atlas which contains town plans, city and village plans and lithographs illustrating the homes of prominent citizens, churches, cement plans and other companies, Sheffield Paper Mills in Saugerties and original Kingston City Hall to name a few. This Atlas is packed with demographic information.

• Ashokan Reservoir Exhibit

  The year 2005 marked the 100-year anniversary of the passing of Chapter 724 of the Laws of 1905 that allowed for reservoir construction and the County Clerk’s Office took this opportunity to host researchers throughout Archives Week, October 11-14, 2005, to view Ashokan Reservoir related record series. A portion of that exhibit is available online.
  On exhibit is a Cloth Notice “Notice of Application for the Appointment of Commissioners of Appraisal” and the “Affidavit of Posting”, as well as the Board of Water Supply Maps for Section 9 in the vicinity of Shokan, West Shokan and Brodhead. The exhibit illustrates where cloth notices were posted on property taken to provide “pure and wholesome water” for New York City.

• Ulster County Bar Association Booklet c. (1925-1926)

  The Bar Association Booklet is a photographic record of members of the Ulster County Bar Association c. (1925-1926), compiled by amateur photographer and attorney Henry Klein and filed with the Ulster County Clerk in 1947. Mr. Klein compiled the photographs in an effort to get a group shot of the association members because the lawyers never got together. The filing made the Kingston Daily Freeman in an article published February 19, 1947. The booklet includes a copy of the Freeman article and a handsome photograph of Mr. Klein with the caption, “The lawyers slave since 1932.”

• Ulster County Records Management Program Scrapbook

  Have some fun flipping through a sampling of some of the happenings and events in the Archives!!!

New Records to Search Online

• 1905 Ulster County Census

  The 1905 Ulster County Census Index was created from a typewritten transcription of the original made some time ago by the clerk’s office. The 1905 census is just one of many taken by New York State between 1825 and 1925. This index contains 84,744 entries.

• Antique Map Inventory

  The Antique Map Inventory c. (1806-1960) is an artificial collection of 436 maps that were stored together in a map case at the County Clerk’s Office. The collection was transferred to the archives as a group in 1989 for re-housing and storage. This index contains 436 entries.

• Minutes of the Board of Supervisors of Ulster County 1710-1731

  Minutes of the Board of Supervisors of Ulster County 1710-1730 was first transcribed and published by the Historical Records Survey of the Works Projects Administration (W.P.A.) Albany, New York in 1939. Archives staff created a database directly from the transcriptions in 2004.

• Town Clerk’s Returns of Births, Deaths and Marriage Records

  The Town Clerk’s Returns of Births, Deaths and Marriages Index was created from annual reports compiled by town clerks and filed with the county clerk primarily between 1847 and 1849. Other entries came from individual marriage reports c. (1886-1883) and occasional entries from census records.

• Ashokan Reservoir Records – Three Record Series Indexed in One Database

  A Finding Aid for the Board of Water Supply taking maps of the Ashokan Reservoir and other reservoirs in the Catskill system, microfilmed transcripts of claimants seeking damages and business losses due to the reservoir construction, and any original papers filed regarding those claims.