Day 31

I am definitely a small town/city girl. This morning I headed north to a YMCA camp on Lake George to scope out a potential place for the Williams family reunion. Lovely, lots of ammendities - huge! From there I came back to Albany thinking I would do some research at the public library, hit a museum and then head to Kingston. As I wandered (driving) downtown Albany, I was UNCOMFORTABLE. The downtown area is rough. I wasn't worried about walking to the library. But I couldn't figure out a safe place to leave my car and my life is in my car. So - big city library research is out. In Boston, I am definitely taking public transportation and leaving my car in the suburbs.


From downtown Albandy, I headed to a 1770 house on the waterfront that served as a military headquarters. Found the place only to encounter a sign on the door saying they were closed for a special tour from 1:30 - 4. Time when I arrived: 1:30. Obviously, I was suppose to go to Kingston.


Off down the highway I go. Kingston is GREAT. Small, easy to get around, friendly people, not scary, suggestions by the Visitor's Bureau volunteer on where to go look for Dutch records. I had contacted both the genealogy society and the historical society for some research time but no response so far. The volunteer suggested I a) go to the side entrance of the Old Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston and see if they didn't have some records I could look at and b) go to Hurley (location of the geneal. society) and just go to the church and see if someone would let me into the basement.


Off I went to the Dutch Reformed Church. Sure enough they had marriage and baptismal records I could look at. No luck finding Eliza Middaugh or Alanson Davenport. We are just missing that generation at the end of the 1700s that would definitely connect them to the proposed ancestory lineage. However, the pastor at the church pushed me to go to the church at Hurley, NY and check in with them on records. He said the Davenports were very established in that community - and also see if I could get access to the genealogy records in the basement. The pastor also knew about Davenports in New Jersey and gave me the phone number and name of the archivist at a main repository in New Brunswick, NJ.


Tomorrow I will head for Hurley and see if the people at the Reformed Church/geneal. society have more data. Will also go to Marbletown and check out the Historical Society. At some point I also want to do the walking tour of the Stockade section of Kingston (my morning constitutional). Will detour to see dad's birthplace in Hudson, NY on my way to Vermont on Friday.