Hi my name is Paul K Bogausch and the best way I can explain why I wanted to create this site is to give you some of my background to help you better understand why I wanted to create this site.
I've grown up in Chatham Center for the last 26 years and have always been interested in my family history. My fathers side of the family (Bogausch side) originated in Germany and immigrated here in 1954. The hard part about that side of the family is that almost all of the books, records, and grave stones were destroyed by the polish shortly after Hitler's demise. So I don't have much information, but am always looking.
My mother's side of the family, the Williams side has a strong history in the Columbia County area. My mother and her sister have tracked down our family tree and can trace our genealogy to before the Mayflower landing here in America. The influence that the Williams, VanValkenburghs, Sutherlands, and Wilbors had in this area was very extensive. They owned almost all of Chatham Center. This information can be found in a historical survey map that I have in my possession and hope to have displayed on this website soon.
Click here to see my Ancestry going back five generations.
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A number of years ago I was digging through my mother's attic and came across my great-uncle's old unpublished stories and I thought well wouldn't it be nice to publish them or at least post them for all the world to see. Because of this and my love for some of Columbia County's mysteries I wanted to create this page about mysteries, hence the web address www.cocomysteries.com, but I found that history was just as interesting, so I combined them and created the site you see today with the original name.
I hope that you find information contained in this site to be helpful in learning Columbia Counties wealth of history and mystery. I hope you enjoy and please feel free to send me any photos or stories that you think should belong on this website. You can do that by going here or email at Paul.Bogausch@gmail.com . Just keep in mind that this website is kept going by your stories. Thank You.
-PKB
A thank you goes out to my wife Tami Schoonmaker Bogausch who will be helping me edit and write the stories found here.