State History

Community Historian Stefan Bielinski pointing out the Albany waterfront in 1787 as depicted in a painting by historical artist Leonard F. Tantillo. 

Providing comprehensive historical services for almost two decades now The People of Colonial Albany Live Here Website presents the research-based and content-driven story of the people who founded and built the city of Albany in online format and available round the clock - 24-7-365.

Established in 1981 and evolving into a model for community-based research, interpretation, and service, the Colonial Albany Social History Project, has provided training and support to more than 500 student interns and to formal and informal volunteers and colleagues. These historians from all walks of life have cooperated in developing a research archive on the lives of the people of colonial Albany and their world. Over its first two decades, founder and community historian Stefan Bielinski and other project members have presented "the early Albany story" in conventional forms including publications, professional and public programs, and exhibitions while servicing requests for aid and assistance from individuals and organizations across New York State and beyond.

By 1998, the growing number of those requests prompted Bielinski to first share data, learning, and experiences on the Internet. Bibliographies and then biographies led the initial online initiative. Since then, that initiative has evolved into a full- blown exposition featuring illustrated and documented sketches of men, women, and children from diverse backgrounds who lived in the city prior to the Industrial Revolution. Site-wide, every highlighted name, place, term, and illustration links to more in-depth explanatory pages while permitting more general viewers to navigate each essay unobstructed by notes and repetitive verbiage.

The project was closed in 2013 with the retirement of its founder Stefan Bielinski - for many years Senior Historian at the New York State Museum. Since then, more than 300 new items have been integrated into the online presentation while more than a thousand existing pieces have been revised, improved, and linked to the overall website. This means that each page has more than two dozen (some such as censuses have hundreds) links. Linked maps and “cityscapes” provided visual perspectives on the community. The number of online individual page expositions now totals over 4,000. Moving forward, the plan for the foreseeable future is to continue building and developing the website experience. New items come online each month. Please take a few minutes to visit this resource whose approach has been used and can be replicated for any community of people.