I want to thank all of you who have posted messages and replies on this board. Reading your thoughts and advice before starting my own searcy gave me hope and direction.
I recently received three photo copied pages from the Records Office of the New York Foundling Hospital. They confirm that my grandfather Joseph Dernier Kearney was an orphan train rider - at the age of four.

The pages raised many more questions for me, so I called Yvonne Wintz at the Records Office. Though she was extremely pleasant, she wasn't knowledgeable about the records themselves and what certain notations might mean.

If you have any experience with such records or have knowledge of the Foundling Hospital procedures in keeping child records in the late 1800s to early 1900s, I would love to hear from you.