Yes, it's true.
It is 9:15 on a quiet Saturday night at Cookie Manor and here I sit.
I am beating my head against the Ancestry.com web site while my husband has his weekly affair with Doctor Who.
The problem is, we have reached the end of the internets as it applies to Mom's birth family. I have exhausted all of the online databases for her birth family. Seriously.
New York, as I have said before, is HUGE state, with a massive population, and according to itself, the center of the universe. HOWEVER, one place where it fails in a Mississippian fashion is its online records and newspapers.
New York is as bad as Albania when it comes to accessing online records.
You see, New York isn't one state - its two. It is the five boroughs that make up greater New York City, and then everything else. And very little of it is online, searchable, with content.
For example, if you are looking for an Ohio death certificate, 1908 to 1953, they are ALL online, for free through family search. And that is ALL 88 counties.
New York? Pish. Send away for $25 for a death certificate from 1914 and PROVE to US that you are a relative.
Looking for a California Newspaper? They are online through a variety of resources, subscription and free services.
New York? You can access the Times. And a couple here and a couple over here. But not the Statewide press archives like Ohio.
Even Indiana - notoriously terrible in its records access, has more daily newspapers online that freaking New York. EVEN OK-freakin-LA-HO-MA has more pages online that are searchable than New York.
But New York? Feh. It's a backwater when it comes to online records, newspapers and directories.
A close friend of Cookie's who is a "certified" genealogist thinks all of this is going to change in the next five years.
"People expect records to be searchable online, and their public records aren't. And someone is going to sue the state for not having open records and New York is going to have to comply," Says my friend Nancyman.
Anyhow, I have to step away from the computer. Its becoming madness.
Speaking of Madness, because we had such a horrible reaction from MIL birth nephew, niece and their kin, we have asked our adoption search Guru, Angela, to intercede with the other sisters family - sorta like a Yenta - on our behalf.
We are hoping that someone who's resume includes professional status can get a foot in the door instead of the way it was slammed in our faces before.
So I am going to get some chocolate chip mint ice cream from Baskin & Robbins - the only chocolate chip mint ice cream there is that I will eat and go break up my husband and Doctor Who.
Why?
Because, Mr. Smarty pants, that's why.
yes, it can be hard. i knocked on the door of the house i grew up in & the door was slammed in my face. i arranged a reunion with a foster child that had lived with my family for 2 years & it went horribly. she never even thanked me for brunch....and she said we were the nice family. the next one treated her like shit. remember what mel brooks, the indian chief said in "blazing saddles".....loz em gain.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the yenta can help.
ReplyDeleteI hope your husband doesn't mind sharing, because I am also having an affair with Dr. Who.
Let us know how it goes with the Yenta.
ReplyDelete