State History

By:
Mary Ellen Kunst
Town of Chemung Historian
www.HistoricalEchoes.weebly.com

When I accepted the Town of Chemung Historian appointment in April 2013, nothing was requested of me other than to manage the Town’s history files. I receive a stipend after taxes of less than $200 a year which I use for expenses since there isn’t a budget in place. 

My goal early on was to bring what history was already available into the 21^st century and to make it available in a digital format. Our town is small with less than 2,000 residents, primarily rural and agricultural, but we have a rich history, including being the first town in a large 3 1/2 county area.

I decided to build a website to which I could continually add information; stories, historical facts and photos. Weebly.com, a free website builder was recommended to me by a friend because of the ease of use. I have basic computer skills but you don’t have to be a computer programmer to build a modern website. No coding is needed, just drag and drop and copy and paste with unlimited file space.  As I add a page to the website, I link it to Facebook, for free as well. Sharing the website to social media is really crucial to make it more readily available to people.

Once the townspeople saw the website and became interested in it, the support and sharing of material began. I have collected a lot of material including photographs and family histories as a result of the website and have made some great connections. The site is a hit with people who no longer live in the area.  The website makes it easy to make digital copies of materials and return the originals to their owners.  I use flash drives to store information that I use on the website, though the key is to have a second flash drive of material as a backup stored in a different location. You could also use the “cloud,” though I have chosen not to.  My website is not an “official” town website, but is added to the Town’s site, which gives me more flexibility.  I added an author’s corner and enjoy personalizing it.

Being one of the only historians in Chemung County with a website makes me accessible to genealogy requests. If the requests are not directly connected to my town I have a list of resources that I give genealogists to contact. I usually do not assist in depth with genealogy requests unless they have something directly to do with the history of Chemung. In such cases, my only request is that I am allowed to share what we uncover on my website. By doing this, I have been able to build upon the stories of people and families from our town’s past. I have met the nicest people since I began my website and have had the opportunity to meet and visit with people from all over the country. In fact, I was contacted by a woman from England who worked for the BBC and included me in a documentary she was working on.

Once the website started to grow, I realized the need to accession the items that were starting to come in by donation and/or purchase along with the items in the Town’s Historical file.  With approval of the Town Council, I wrote a grant and received $2,400 from the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes to purchase a computer, printer and a museum software program. I guess at the time I didn’t realize the amount of work this would entail to accession the items one at a time. I created a little office in my home and have a secondary storage area provided by the Town for the overflow.  Besides working on the website, I write stories which the local newspaper—the Morning Times— has been supportive of and has printed on occasion. The paper   has also requested the use of old photos for a new feature they are creating called “Snapshots of the Past”.  Anytime I can get my name or my website information in front of the public is useful and can lead to acquiring new historical information. A website opens the possibilities like nothing else I know. You never know where you might find information that will become integral to your town’s past. In eleven months, my site has received 55,523 page views and has grown to approximately 210 pages.   You don’t need to have expensive equipment or a degree in Computer Science to create a useful and attractive website; you just need to have a passion for history and access to computer.