Old Mentz Heritage Center

The Old Mentz Heritage Center is the historical society for the towns of Mentz and Montezuma, and the village of Port Byron, NY

The New Family Project Website

The Old Mentz Heritage Center Family Project has been created by merging previously existing projects from the Montezuma Historical Society and Lock 52 Historical Society who merged in 2024. Because these projects were created on different platforms, merging them...

Researching the Family Tree

Are you setting out on your journey to climb your family tree? If you live down the street or on the other side of the world, there are many resources to help you find your ancestors. Here are some of our favorite places to look. And, although our focus is on local...

Our New ErieCanal2025 Book

The year of 2025 is the bicentennial of the opening of the full canal on October 26, 1825. However, for us here in Cayuga County, the canal had opened in 1820 when the 98 miles of canal between Utica and Montezuma had opened for business in the spring of 1820. To help...

Tax Rolls for the Town of Mentz

Back in 2008 or ’09, the Cayuga County Records Retention department went through and digitized many of their records, and then decided to toss all the original books. Happily they offered the original paper tax rolls to any town historian that may want them, so...
The January Citizen Column – A Montezuma Mystery

The January Citizen Column – A Montezuma Mystery

As October 26, 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the grand opening of the Erie Canal along it’s entire length, we will be featuring canal stories and news all year long. The towpath version of the canal was a large factor in the lives of our ancestors and certainly...