I’ve always been interested in history of any kind – national, international of local history.

In relation, my mother’s family has lived in our area for a number of generations. In keeping with that idea here’s a short little local history story! My maternal grandmother’s grandfather was a fellow by the name of Thomas Lawrence. Thomas was born in Ely, England and immigrated to the U.S. in 1871. He came to Corning shortly after he arrived in this country and founded a successful plumbing business. He went on to found the water works in the City of Corning, working out of the old brick building that use to border Denison Park and where Rite Aid is today, right across the street from Dunkin’ Donuts.

That is a snap shot of a page of my family history, and if you’re like me and you find history stories to be interesting – why not share your stories with the extended library family?

We’ve got narrative recording equipment at the library, part of our Makerspace, that allows us to record people telling stories – if you’ve got a story you can come in and be recorded and then either take the recording with you to share with your family and friends or both take a copy with you and allow us to post your story on our Corning History blog and add a copy to the library’s collection.

And if you prefer to write a story instead of recording one, you can do that too! I’ve got a binder all ready to put new local history stories in.

So if you like to tell local history stories let us know – we like those stories too!

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

P.S. Did you know you can scan photos and slides to create a digital family history album or use the Cricut machine to create a cool cover for a hand made family history album if you prefer print and actual photos to digital ones?  You can! There is equipment in Creation Station that will assist you in doing just that! For details ask the staff or reply to this posting.