What we want to do here is help you, the person with local history, family, or house history questions, get help from libraries, archives, museums, historical organizations, government record offices, and genealogical societies.
Author Archives: Cynthia Van Ness
Remembering City’s Martyr in Fight Against Klan
The Buffalo Klan members were not rural, undereducated whites with poor economic prospects. Here, the Klan’s 4,000 members were drawn mostly from the Protestant, educated, professional and merchant middle class.
Was the Michigan Street Baptist Church a Secret Hiding Place?
The professional historians who compiled the 2013 Historic Structures Report of the Michigan Street Baptist Church were unable to find any period evidence that the church served as a hiding place during Underground Railroad days.
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How Come No One Has an Old Picture of My House?
Illustration of woman with camera courtesy of Pixabay Or maybe you’re looking for an old picture of your playground, corner tavern, or favorite neighborhood delicatessen. The first place to check is with your local library, museum, or historical society. Maybe it turns out that they have thousands of old pictures but they don’t have yourContinue reading “How Come No One Has an Old Picture of My House?”
Buffalo Takes on the Ku Klux Klan
On the evening on August 31, 1924, shots rang out in front of 128 Durham Street, near Delavan and Grider in Buffalo. Moments later, Special Officer Edward C. Obertean lay mortally wounded; Klansman Thomas Austin was dead; and a Ku Klux Klan recruiter, or Kleagle, had a gunshot wound in the groin. Armed warfare hadContinue reading “Buffalo Takes on the Ku Klux Klan”
Back Cover Blurb for City on the Edge
It is easy to dismiss Buffalo as the poster child of urban decrepitude and dysfunction. It is also wrong.
Who Can Help With a Little Web Design Problem?
As you may know, I run this site as an on-my-own-time, on-my-own-dime project to pull together online resources for researching ancestral & architectural history in Buffalo. I host it at WordPress with a personal account. For $25 a month, I could upgrade to the business plan, which opens up all the WordPress plug-ins, of whichContinue reading “Who Can Help With a Little Web Design Problem?”
Thoughts on Little Libraries
LLs are a creative solution to the fact that in many places, book supply exceeds demand. There are more books than there are collectors or libraries or used bookstores or rummage sales who want or need them.
No, City Hall Has Not Lost Records in a Fire
Originally published at my LinkedIn page in December 2019, then reprinted by BuffaloRising.com with the title “Buffalo’s Newest Urban Legend” at both sites. Reproduced here with edits and updates. Image of Buffalo City Hall courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The assertion first came to my attention in 2018 in the comment section at a popular BuffaloContinue reading “No, City Hall Has Not Lost Records in a Fire”
