Comb the used book stores for French's Gazeteer of 1861, with much detail
on previous boundary changes. Prices may range from $10-50. Hint: The worse
the condition the greater the bargain. If the plates are missing so much
the better. I recently found a copy, with many of the plates intact but
with crumbling binding and stitches coming loose, for $10. Many public
libraries have a copy, in case you want to check it out first to see if it
meets your needs.

>snip>
>The question was to identify the 12 original counties defined
>in 1683 for the then-colonial NY.  I found my initial response
>within a day, in the 1882 Dutchess County history.  The mention
>of the "former" NYS counties of Dukes and Cornwall made me want
>to locate more info in a general NYS reference, with details or
>at least a summary of the major land/boundary changes of NYS.
>
<snip>

>I briefly checked the index of Flick's 10-vol, but found no entry
>for Dukes or Cornwall (weak-indexes are the bane of my quests),
>and nothing circa 1683 with even a list of the counties.



The problem is most indexes are non-existant. Many publishers obviously did
not to bother with indexes at all, especially regional publishers in the
1920s and 30s.
>
Happy hunting,

David Minor




David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Pittsford, New York
716 264-0423
[log in to unmask]

To be put on the mailing list for the weekly TimeMaster radio scripts,
e-mail me at the address above.


http://home.eznet.net/~dminor

includes NYNY, a series of timelines covering New York City and State, from
approximately 450,000,000 BC to 1990 AD.