The morning of September 17th, 2002 found my sister and I full of expectations as we set off for the Cultural Education Centre in Albany, which contains the Library and Archives.

The Archives are located in a large building that contains many books, historic documents, microfilm and microfiche machines. It was overwhelming to see how much information was there. We spent the entire day searching through old records and books, disappointingly we did not find anything of any significance to assist us in our search for information on William Hearns and descendents that we did not already have.

The staff of the Archives were very helpful to us and informed us that the next day many United Empire Loyalist descendants were actually coming to the Archives for a to spend the day researching. They suggested we may want to stay over another night if we wanted to be there when UEL descendants came, however, we decided not to do this as our time was limited and it would be far too busy, to do any significant research on the Hearns family. We did leave a few of our calling cards though, and asked that these be made available to the other researchers who may be researching the Hearn(s) name. First major disappointment of the trip, however, we still had Poughkeepsie, Patterson and Fairfield down the road, who knows what we might find!

We spent the night of September 17th, 2002 in Fishkill, New York before heading on to Poughkeepsie on September 18th, 2002. Visiting the internet in preparation for the trip we determined that Poughkeepsie would have some valuable information in their Vital Statistics Office. We had noted the address to take with us. Laurie and I walked the streets of Poughkeepsie searching for the Vital Statistics Office. The address we had taken from the internet was actually the address of the Poughkeepsie Registry Office. The staff at the Registry Office were not very helpful when we told them we were looking for the Vital Statistics Office; in fact, they did not seem to know what we were talking about. Laurie and I ended up at the Poughkeepsie Library and found nothing. Our second great disappointment of the trip. However…..there was still Patterson and Fairfield ahead of us! Surely, we would find some of the answers we were looking for there.

We left Poughkeepsie on September 17th, 2002 deciding to take a detour to the town of Beacon, New York, there to visit the historic homestead of “Madam Britt,” dating back from as early as the 1700’s. As mentioned on other pages, Madam Britt was included in Pelletreau’s book. Perhaps we would find something of importance there. We located Madam Britt’s homestead in Beacon on the corner of a side street. A sign in front of the homestead indicating that tours of the homestead were available and were to be booked through the Daughters of the Revolution. From a telephone booth, I called the phone number given only to find out from a recording that there were no tours available until October 6th, 2002 and meanwhile the place was closed up. Another disappointment. We went back to the homestead and took a look around. In the back of the home was a beautiful little garden with a well. We took some pictures by the well as a souvenir. Before leaving, we slid one of our cards under the door in hope that someone might want to contact us. Another disappointment on our journey, however, Patterson and Fairfield beckoned ahead!

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