New York County Record Description & Facts

Since 1919 New York has had a system of local historians who are appointed to collect and preserve old records. While each county, town, and village should have a historian, not all vacancies are always filled, and of those that are, the knowledge and helpfulness in answering inquiries varies. In most cases it is best to start with the county historian, whose office may contain original or transcribed county, church, cemetery, newspaper, and other material, and in some cases, specialized indexes to these and other types of records.

Publication of town records is not widespread, with the exception of those for Queens (including Nassau), Suffolk, and Westchester counties. Various items from town records have been presented in Tree Talks (see Periodicals). See also Harold Nesler, A Bibliography of New York State Communities: Counties, Towns, Villages (Port Washington, N.Y.: Ira J. Friedman, 1968).

Chosse a link below to learn more about the stated records. These pages describes the type of records that can be found in New York research. Or you can go to a county page to learn about more localized records