Most NYGenWeb sites are coordinated by family genealogists. Several are coordinated or assisted by local historical societies. Yates's coordinator Fran Dumas is the Yates County Historian, as well as the public historian of the town of Milo and the village of Penn Yan. Subscribers to the Finger Lakes mailing list have become accustomed to Fran's knowledge, helpfulness, and familiarity with current and former residents of Yates County. Recent discussions of ice cutting on Keuka Lake, migration to the West, and Sullivan's March have been memorable conversations between list members and Fran, threads and advice printed off to read and share for years to come.

Yates County and Finger Lakes area online researchers now have "virtual" direct access to records dating back two centuries, as Fran gives the red carpet guided tour into the well-organized shelves and cabinets of the Yates County Office of Public History and the local clerks' offices. The questions of what types of resources are available for Yates County and where they're located are not posed by visitors to this site, as it's based on indexes to the type of resources we all spend hours combing the web for.

INDEXES CURRENTLY ON LINE:

• All Federal and State Censuses for towns presently within Yates County,1790 - 1870; 1875 is in progress
• Vital records of all towns and the villages of Dresden, Dundee, Penn Yan and Rushville
• Records of the Surrogate Court through 1903, including estates and guardianships, civil and criminal matters
• Marriages and deaths - St John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1841 - 1885
• Vital records printed in the Penn Yan Democrat newspaper, 1899 - 1949
• Immigration and naturalization records

Each town's formation and early history are well-described, with cross-indexing to coverage of what records have survived, the years and current locations of each type within the town, and indexes to births, marriages and deaths within the towns. Similar profiles are provided for the four major villages. Of interest to all NY State researchers are Fran's explanations of types of records common throughout NY State, what the purpose of each record is, when record-keeping started in NY State, and so on.

Yates County was organized in 1823 from its parent Ontario County. Two more towns were added from Steuben County in 1826. Yates is noteworthy for being the location of the first permanent white settlement in western New York. A group of New England followers of Jemima Wilkinson, the charismatic religious leader known as the Public Universal Friend, took up settlement near Keuka Lake in 1788. These pioneers of the Central New York wilderness were the vanguard of waves of migration into the Finger Lakes region soon to follow before the turn of the 19th century. There's something for every Finger Lakes researcher on this encyclopedic site. Hear Fran tell you how it was.