All municipalities in NYS are required by state law to have a public
historian; this means that in theory every town, village, city and county
has someone whose job it is to preserve local history. Many town and village
historians (not all) will do genealogical research for people who write and
ask for it. Most of these individuals are either unpaid or at most get their
expenses reimbursed. Some refuse to do genealogy at all. It is absolutely up
to the person him or herself.
County historians are actually discouraged by the state association from
doing genealogical research. They are supposed to concentrate on local
history instead. Some do it anyway, either because they like it or because
it makes a little money for the municipality. Those who do research (and
many who do not) are so inundated with requests that they can't possibly
keep up. Even when the job is full-time (very rare) there are many other
things that must be done. I am a county historian and I do research. I often
get literally months behind, simply because I can't spend very many hours a
week at it. I have no staff, and even though I am reasonably expert and can
find my way around the records as quickly as anyone, searching unindexed
records takes time; that's why one of my jobs is to prepare indexes!
There are three historical societies in my county (Yates). They will all do
genealogical research and they all very gratefully accept donations. They
all have excellent collections and are proud to serve out-of-area customers.
But they too fall behind because they have not got people enough to keep up.
It always pays to be patient; and no one resents a reminder if the wait
stretches out too long. It will almost always take weeks more often than
just days, though.
My web site has names and addresses of all my local historians, also
societies and public libraries with history sections.
Fran Dumas
Yates County Historian
http://www.vivanet.com/~dumasm/