Erie Canal Museum - Lecture Series, Part 2

Yesterday I took my oldest grandson, Mike, to the Erie Canal Museum. I rarely get to spend time with my grandchildren individually, so it was a wonderful day for me.


The topic was Canal Basics, presented by Assistant Director/Curator, Andrew P. Kitzmann.

I grew up in Syracuse and having studied the canal in school and more recently in the course of my family history research I wasn't expecting to learn anything new. I was wrong. In the course of an hour and a half I learned quite a few things and it was an enjoyable lecture.

Mr. Kitzmann was kind enough to include Mike, the only child in attendance, by talking about the roll children played on the canal. Boys as young as eight were expected to work two 6 hour shifts each day traveling with the mules on the towpath. Adding an hour before each shift to feed the animals and an hour at the end of the shift to clean and care for them resulted in 16 hour days. When asked if he'd rather work on the canal or go to school Mike was quick to vote for school. Something that I was not previously aware of was that men would meet the immigrant ships in New York City to find boys to work on the canal. This has me rethinking the family story that has been handed down that Michael Camfield was indentured to a farmer and then went to work with horses on the towpath.

In 1800 New York was a wilderness of old growth forest, something that is nearly impossible to envision now. Prior to the building of the canal it took 6 - 8 weeks to travel from Albany to Buffalo. The canal shortened the trip to 6 - 8 days. I can now drive from Albany to Buffalo in 6 hours or less.

If you had ancestors that migrated across New York at any time in the 1800's there is a good chance that the Erie Canal and/or one of the feeder canals played an important part in their lives. My ancestors worked on the building of the canal. Later they owned businesses or worked along the canal.

There are three more lectures left in the series:

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 1:00 p.m.
Art Cohn, executive director of Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.

Saturday, March 11, 2008 at 1:00 p.m.
Randy Duchain, author of "New York Waters," with book signing to follow.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 10:30 a.m.
Andrew Kitzmann, Erie Canal Museum, "Canal Inspired Architecture."

Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Boulevard East
Syracuse, NY 13202

Mon.- Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sun. 10 a.m.- 3 p.m.

Academy of Genealogy and Family History

The Academy of Genealogy and Family History first awards ceremony was a success with 23 inductees receiving iGene awards in 5 categories. Your Master of Ceremonies for this, the 42nd edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, is Jasia! Stop over at Creative Gene for your introduction to all of the deserving winners. Now is the time to make sure you didn't miss any of the best posts of 2007.

The topic for the next edition of the COG sounds easy - until you start to think about it!

And now it's time for a Call for Submissions! The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be: Technology. What technology do you most rely on for your genealogy and family history research? Select one piece of hardware (besides your computer), one piece of software (besides your internet browser), and one web site/blog (besides your own) that are indispensable to you. Resist the urge to dilute the impact of your 3 choices by mentioning several others you use and appreciate as well. This is an exercise in appraising the technology you use/recommend the most. The deadline for submissions is March 1st.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Non-fiction meme

Lori, at Smokey Mountain Family Historian, has tagged me for the non-fiction book meme created by Gautami.

What issues/topics interest you most--non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that have nothing to do with novels?

Mostly history and gardening these days. I occasionally read some psychology books and technical manuals.

Would you like to review books concerning those?

Nope! I'm way behind on my writing as it is.

Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? Tell reasons for what ever you choose.

I could probably be persuaded to write reviews if I were paid or received free books.

Would you recommend those to your friends and how?

I do recommend books to friends if I've enjoyed them.

If you have already done something like this, link it to your post.

The only review I've written was for a garden book.

This meme seems to have made the rounds! With a tag of 10 if all of the genealogy bloggers haven't been tagged yet they soon will be! So I'll tag Mrs. Mecomber at New York Traveler and anyone who hasn't been tagged yet.