Please join Kalyn Loewer, Manager of Digital Collections, as she walks participants through two of the NYG&B’s online collections: “Town Records, Sterling, Cayuga County, 1829–1880” and “Union Hill Cemetery, Cato, Cayuga County, Established 1802.” This session is part of the NYG&B’s online series, Collection Close-Ups, in which Kalyn will explore one of our many online collections, explaining what you can find and how you can search.
The Town of Sterling was named after American Revolutionary War general William Alexander, Lord Stirling, a Scottish-American major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The NYG&B worked with the Town of Sterling to digitize several record sets, including the 1845 census, 28 volumes of tax records from 1852 to 1880, and a collection of school records from 1829 to 1859.
Union Hill Cemetery, established in 1802 and located in the Village of Cato, is an active cemetery that dates back to the 19th century, encompassing more than 200 years of burials. The cemetery records include various family plots and inform researchers about who owned them, the date the deed was signed, the various family members buried within the plot, and, in some cases, who the deeds were passed on to. The majority of the records detail the full name and the date of death of the individual, with birth dates and age occasionally included. A full layout of the cemetery and the orientation of plots is included at the end of the source.