New York Genealogical Archives - It is wise to acquaint yourself with any repository which you might visit by writing to the appropriate archive or library in advance. Every repository has published materials that introduce its collections and research policy. State archives and historical agencies also have Internet sites that provide the same information. Some even have downloadable databases for some or parts of their collections.
New York State Archives and Records Administration
The State Education Department, Cultural Education Center, 11th Floor
Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230; (518) 474-8955, [EMAIL] Referred to here as the New York State Archives for brevity, it was the last such archives to be established in the United States. It houses land and court records, military and tax records, New York state vital records indexes, pre-settlement survey maps, and legislative records.
"Genealogists are generally positive and energetic, and most are ready to share their findings or research experience with anyone they can help. There are hundreds of genealogical societies at the grass-roots level. Knowledge of the genealogical community will place you in the midst of much activity, increase your productivity, and alert you to the importance of research standards and etiquette." Sandra Hargreaves Luebking,
Editor of FGS Forum, Co-editor of The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy
New York Historical & Genealogical Societies - Because family history research relies greatly upon records found at the county level, many local societies represent counties. Organizations also form around shared interests. Ethnic or religious origins account for many groups, such as the Polish Genealogical Society of America and P.O.I.N.T. (Pursuing Our Italian Names Together). Societies also form around common locales of origin for members’ ancestors; hence, the Palatines to America and Germans from Russia societies. To locate these and other societies, consult Juliana Szucs Smith’s The Ancestry Family Historian’s Address Book. It lists addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Internet addresses of thousands of organizations throughout the United States.
For almost every state there is a state genealogical society, a state genealogical council, or both. In addition to their own work, state-level groups sometimes help coordinate the efforts of local societies within the state. Their publications, newsletters and quarterlies, supplement those produced by the local societies.
Central New York Genealogical Society, P.O.Box 104, Colvin Station, Syracuse, NY 13205 began Tree Talks in 1961. Except for some information articles, it is essentially a journal of mostly pre-1850 source records, arranged by county, with coverage for most of the state except New York City and Long Island, with concentration on upstate New York. Its contents include abstracts of censuses, wills, administrations, guardianships, marriages and deaths from newspapers, cemetery marker transcripts, church records, family Bibles, naturalizations, tax records, and town records.
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society,
122 East 58th Street, New York, New York 10022-1939; 212-755-8532, Fax: 212-754-4218 A private society, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society publishes the NYG&B Newsletter and a quarterly, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Its library holds much New York State and related material, both for New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. For New York there are censuses, federal and state; a large manuscript collection of church, cemetery, Bible, and other records; and an extensive amount of published family and local histories. Nonmembers can use the library for a small fee, but only members have access to the stacks, manuscripts, and microforms. The library provides a list of area researchers.
Western New York Genealogical Society, Inc.,
5859 S Park Ave,
P.O. Box 338,
Hamburg, NY 14075-0338 is the periodical of that organization. Published since 1974, it includes sources of records and other material pertaining to the eight western counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans, and Wyoming. Holland Society of New York
The New-York Historical Society, 2 West 77th Street,
New York, NY 10024; (212) 873-3400 Probably best known to genealogists for its manuscript collection, The New-York Historical Society has newspapers, city directories, maps, original deeds and other documents, and prints and photographs. Some of the society's holdings were published in its Collections from 1811 to 1975. From 1917 to 1980, the society also published The New-York Historical Society Quarterly.
New York State Library, Cultural Education Center, 7th Floor, Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230 The state library has a large collection of published and manuscript material on New York, including genealogies and local histories, federal and state censuses, city directories, and periodicals. It is also one of the two depositories for the State of New York DAR collection. There is a published guide to the library called Gateway to America . The Eighth Annual Report of the New York State Education Department and the New York (State) State Library Annual Report 94th, both for 1911, reported the loss and salvage following the library's disastrous fire that year. An annotated copy of the latter is in the manuscript division of the state library.
The New York Public Library, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018 The New York Public Library is not only a tremendous library for New York research, but also contains substantial amounts of material on the rest of the country and the world. Besides genealogy and local history, the public library has newspapers, federal and state censuses, church records, city and telephone directories, and divisions for maps, manuscripts, Jewish, and other material. More current acquisitions are accessed through computer terminals at the library. A list of area researchers is available from the library on request.
Onondaga County Public Library, 447 South Salina Street, Syracuse, NY 13202-2494 With one of the largest collections of genealogical material in the state, it has a fine collection of published works, manuscripts, and specialized indexes.
New York Genealogical Publications - The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record is the oldest continuing genealogical periodical in the state. Published since 1870, it is the quarterly of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society and has printed numerous source records, compiled genealogies, and other fine articles concerning New York history and genealogy. Some of the journal's more extensive coverage has extended to New England and New Jersey. There is no every-name index, but master indexes are available for volumes 1–20, and indexes to surnames are available for volumes 21–40. See also Jean D. Worden's Master Index to this journal for 1870–1982 (Franklin, Ohio: the author, 1983).
The Central New York Genealogical Society began Tree Talks in 1961. Except for some information articles, it is essentially a journal of mostly pre-1850 source records, arranged by county, with coverage for most of the state except New York City and Long Island, with concentration on upstate New York. Its contents include abstracts of censuses, wills, administrations, guardianships, marriages and deaths from newspapers, cemetery marker transcripts, church records, family Bibles, naturalizations, tax records, and town records. Statewide or regional publications include the following: [ see specific county page for individual county list ]
De Halve Maen - is the journal of the Holland Society of New York, published since 1922. It contains articles about early Dutch in the state and has some genealogies tracing the origins of Dutch immigrants.
The New-York Historical Society Quarterly (1917-80)
New York History, begun in 1919 by the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown. Proceedings (1902-17, 17 volumes) of the association should also be mentioned.
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register
National Genealogical Society Quarterly,
The American Genealogist,
The Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey
The Detroit Society for Genealogical Research Magazine
The Capital (Albany and Rensselaer counties)
The Columbia (Columbia County)
The Mohawk (Montgomery and Schenectady counties)
The Saratoga (Saratoga County)
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record- is the oldest continuing genealogical periodical in the state. Published since 1870, it is the quarterly of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society and has printed numerous source records, compiled genealogies, and other fine articles concerning New York history and genealogy. Some of the journal's more extensive coverage has extended to New England and New Jersey. There is no every-name index, but master indexes are available for volumes 1-20, and indexes to surnames are available for volumes 21-40.
New York Newspapers - The “Newspaper Project” at New York State Library seeks to identify and preserve newspapers throughout the state. While this project is underway. A Bibliography of Newspapers in Fourteen New York Counties (Cooperstown, N. Y.: New York Historical Association, 1978) covers Allegany, Broome, Cayuga, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, and Yates counties.
Many libraries and historical societies have important collections of newspapers and often have abstracts of or indexes to newspaper items, mostly notices of marriages and deaths. Among those published items are the following:
Bowman, Fred Q. 10,000 Vital Records of Western New York, 1809–1850; ...of Central New York, 1813–1850; ...of Eastern New York, 1777–1834. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985, 1986, 1987; and 8,000 More Vital Records of Eastern New York State 1804–1850 (Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Kingship, 1991). These are three separate, useful volumes. For a continuation of the latter book, see “1,100 Vital Records of Northeastern New York 1835–1850” in volumes 118 and 119 of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.
Gavit, Joseph. American Deaths and Marriages, 1784–1829. This is a microfilm of alphabetized abstracts from New York newspapers, for which Kenneth Scott prepared Index to Non-principal Names (New Orleans, La.: Polyanthos, 1976).
Maher, James P., comp. Index to Marriages and Deaths in the New York Herald 1835–1855 and ...1856–1863, volume 2. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987, 1991. Coverage extends beyond the New York City area.
Reynolds, Helen W. Notices of Marriages and Deaths...Published in Newspapers Printed in Poughkeepsie..., 1778–1825. Volume 4 of Dutchess County Historical Society Collections. Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 1930. A card file at the Adriance Library, Poughkeepsie, takes these abstracts further into the nineteenth century.
Scott, Kenneth. Genealogical Data From Colonial New York Newspapers. Reprinted from The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982.
———, and Kristin Lunde Gibbons, eds. The New-York Magazine Marriages and Deaths: 1790–1797. New Orleans, La.: Polyanthos, 1975.
Nineteenth-century marriage and death notices from the New York Evening Post and Brooklyn Eagle, both abstracted by Gertrude A. Barber, are also to be checked. For a more complete list of New York City and Long Island area abstracts, see Henry B. Hoff's “Marriage and Death Notices in New York City Newspapers,” and “Marriage and Death Notices in Long Island Newspapers,” The NYG&B Newsletter 2 (1991): 3–5 and 20–21 respectively.
While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful records, only the genealogist’s imagination and resourcefulness limit newspapers’ usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local history, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.
Newspapers can provide at least a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. For example, a person’s obituary may have appeared in a newspaper even when civil death records for that person do not exist. And newspapers are an important source of marriage records, particularly in those states where civil recording of marriages was essentially nonexistent until the twentieth century.
Unlike official records, newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area. They often include reports of the weddings of local citizens (even those that occurred in a neighboring county or another state), and they sometimes report visits of geographically distant relatives or the visits of former local residents. They often published death notices of individuals who had left the area long before but who still had local family or friends as well. In each case the newspaper account can identify the date and place of an event, thus opening the possibility of turning up additional documentation in other sources.
The first step in searching a newspaper is to identify those which served the area of interest and which have survived. The three most necessary tools are bibliographies (What was published?), inventories of library and depository holdings (Where is it?), and indexes (How do I find what I want in it?).
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