Now that the weather is warming up here in New York State, we thought it high time we swung up to the far north for a visit - to St. Lawrence County. St. Lawrence, the geographically largest county in the state, borders the St. Lawrence Seaway and Canada. Despite the presence of some early French and British forts, there was very little settlement before St. Lawrence was taken off from Oneida County in 1802. It's strategic location along the St. Lawrence River made it the place of stirring events during the War of 1812, most notably the taking of Ogdensburg. St. Lawrence is noted for traditional cold winters, glorious springs and summers spent on the beautiful islands, the cities and villages of Ogdensburg, Massena, Canton, Gouvernour and Potsdam, and millions of acres of Adirondack forest. The pioneers of St. Lawrence County were hardy and industrious, but left not much in the way of early vital records. Many of their children moved to warmer regions or continued north into Canada. And so St. Lawrence is a very important U.S. county for Canadian researchers.

St. Lawrence County GenWeb is a "low-tech/user friendly" site offering variety, listings of basic county resources researchers want to know about, and general genealogical research direction. There are many links for St. Lawrence County on the web, and coordinator Judy Boxler has made an effort to track them all down for site visitors. St. Lawrence is also a center of higher education, having excellent university and local libraries, all noted in the Research Resources section. On-site military information includes coverage of the War of 1812 pensioners and the 16th NY Volunteer Infantry. Judy hopes to add more to her growing section of indexes, which currently includes books, vital and church records, and family histories.

We'd like to specially acknowledge Judy's efforts in growing her site as she lives on the other side of the continent. That may not seem such a big deal in light of the capabilities of the net and what family researchers have access to on line, but Judy happens to reside in Canada. In adding material to her site she herself doesn't have the benefit of our inter-library loan and first-hand access to "on paper" St. Lawrence materials. St. Lawrence County GenWeb especially depends on State-side and Ontario Province volunteers to continue typing up and sending in contributions large and small. When planning your summer tour up to the local societies, or next visit to your closest large genealogical library, drop Judy a line and ask how you can help.