ALBANY COUNTY — Jessica Serfilippi started her groundbreaking and myth-busting research on Alexander Hamilton the way she thinks any historian should — with an open mind, she says.

Patricia C. Bischof, as an adult, sat in a room in her mother’s house, crying, as she listened to the story of her mother’s life — a story she had never heard before.

Her mother, Ruth, was being filmed in the next room in an interview, which Bischof had set up, for the Shoah Foundation.

The proclamation event featured an array of honored guests, including State Senator Michelle Hinchey and Albany County legislators Jeff Perlee and Chris Smith.

The Guilderland School Board’s Feb. 15 resolution says the Cobblestone Schoolhouse property “is declared to be of no further use or value to the District and in fact, continued ownership of Property is fiscally detrimental to the District.” The resolution goes on to authorize listing the property for sale or auction.

Jill Franken Dugan, who teaches Spanish at Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland, recently learned something by chance about her late father’s service in the United States Army. Her father, Hellmut Frankenberg, was a Ritchie Boy — a graduate of the the Army’s elite military intelligence training program at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. The Ritchie Boys were instrumental in helping the Allies win World War II.

The first event will be a proclamation on Feb. 28, the town’s official 200th anniversary, and it will be followed by various events through August, including a barbecue, pageant, and fireworks. 

Judy Kimes, New Scotland Historical Association

For many Wampanoags, as well as other Native Americans, Thanksgiving Day is a day of mourning. It’s a day to reflect on the theft of their lands, on the genocide of millions of their people, and on the continuing assault on their culture.

Merton D. Simpson has always had a sense of his African ancestry and his Blackness.
He was born in Charleston, South Carolina and raised in Brooklyn so he says he’s always known the deep divisions in the United States.

GUILDERLAND — What began as a path traveled by Native Americans became a plank road for European settlers and now is suburban Guilderland’s major thoroughfare — Route 20.