Search billions of records on Ancestry.com

Projects

 

TIGS Monthly Meeting Notes
February, 2004

These notes were taken and transcribed by TIGS Member Kristin Ayotte
and
originally distributed thrrough the TIGS mailing list

Troy Irish Genealogy Society Meeting Notes
February 19, 2004

The TIGS met on 2/19/04 at the Grove in Troy. Attending the meeting were Jeanne Keefe, MariAlice Mangan, Donna Vaughn, Lynn Grice, Lizette Strait, Michael and Howard Mcalonie and Kristin Ayotte.

The Group got right down to business by ordering dinner early and got to the agenda. Much of the time was spent discussing Old Business since it concerns our website. We really want to get it running and of interest to those out there that want to access information. Jeanne Keefe will be taking over the site from Pat, she has gotten information concerning the running of the site from Pat and as soon as her calendar clears she will begin her the process. She will be training Mike Mcalonie on the ins and outs of web management so that down the road he can take over.

Old Business

1. Donna Vaughn is working on an article devoted to Green Island. It will be a timeline of events and people that shaped the village. She has several source documents that she will be using for reference. When completed she will be forwarding to Jeanne for posting on the site.

2. Lynn Grice is working on the "Village of Emly" in Ireland and its strong connection to Troy. Many Irish from that village came and settled in Troy. Reference was made to Emly in a TV article and gravestone inscriptions by Lorretta Niel indicate a strong number of immigrants to Troy from Emly. Emly has a monument that references their Troy contingent.

When completed it will be on our site for members to add names and/or histories.

3. Much like item 1 Mike is working on information on West Troy. This item was submitted by list member John? and Lynn Sisk so their input would be appreciated.

4. Mike is working on the list of local photographers. The question was raised as to whether or not we could photocopy pages of city directories at the library. Interesting conversation since Jeanne is a Librarian.....

5. Lizette is working on waterfront activity in the area, inclusive of influx of people, housing, unionization etc. Input from list members would be greatly appreciated. She is searching old newspapers, etc for information.

6. Marialice wondered how she got to be our resource person? Actually all she did was mention the wonderful job Bill McGrath has done posting resources to the list. The site should have a quick link of contacts with hours, content, etc. We dicussed a "Notice Board" where these would be listed as well as upcoming events, new information, etc.

7. Lizette came to the meeting with much information concerning funeral parlors in the area. She was chastised by Jeanne for using a highlighter on her copies...she has learned her lesson and will not do that again (right Lizette). The list is in Jeanne's capable hands.

8. Kris has been saving interesting memories from the list for printing and memoralizing down the road. I am imploring the list to E-mail the early ones directly to me at kris6851@aol as I did not save all of them. I know that there were some great ones posted before we decided to save. So PLEASE resend them to me....

9. Our goal will be to have a hand held taperecorder at the meetings. This means we need some more attendance. If you have a wonderful recollection you would like to see recorded come to the meeting and for budget purposes (since we do not have a budget) bring a small blank "micro cassette" with you. We will do our best to transcribe for posting, but also would like to save the cassettes for a TIGS Oral Library.

10. This was more difficult as there is so much information on the WWW concerning immigration. We proposed having links on our site to suggested sites for practical purposes

11. This was the topic of the evening because all of the above depends on a successful website. Good things take time and we predict in time a great, resourceful site for all of our TIGS projects.

 

New Business

Field trips were again discussed with the mention of Hudson River Industrial Gateway, NARA in Pittsburgh and The Menelly Bell Foundry bulding. New to me was that there were two Menelly Bell factories run by brothers, one in Troy and one in West Troy.

Jeanne has offered to host a group at the RPI Architectural Library for the purpose of a class in scanning photos and documents to the computer. Several of us are VERY interested in this venture. Details to follow....(she is a very busy lady offering alot of help).

An archive of the list was discussed with the issues of privacy coming up. Since we are a relatively small group and many personal discussions take place we have to think it through. We have tabled it for now but do welcome the groups thoughts on this.

We discussed the many and varied "corner stores" that were part of Troys landscape. Great topic for the list, probably great memories to share.

I apologize for not remembering which attendee enlightened us to the fact that "Scotch Hill" in Troy was the area of Thompson Street and all the side streets off of it.

We had a few minutes of book discussion, Morgain Llwelyn has several Irish fiction books that are historically correct, the titles being "1916" and "1921" as well as "Echoes of the Savage Land" (please correct me if I erred on this as my notes are scratchy).

One end of the table enjoyed some memories of collge classes, while the other end shared some old time Troy names. Howard was delightful and his service picture used as an advertisement for WWII showed a very handsome man..

Once again the group shared information and enjoyed good company for a couple of hours. We ask that other list members who are able to please mark your calendar and try to attend the next meeting. We are trying to find other locations to meet and look for suggestions. For now we are planning on Thursday 3/18/04 at 6:15 at the Grove located across from HVCC in Troy.

Kristin Cooney-Ayotte

 

To report problems with this site please contact the TIGS webmaster
at jkeefe@nycap.rr.com

Back                                                                                                  Home