Researching New York Vital Records

New York State did not require towns to record vital records prior to 1880. This can make finding vital records for your ancestors a real challenge, if you don't know the resources available to you. Here are some resources to help you in your quest:
New York Marriage Licenses Previous To 1784 records the names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued by the Secretary of the Province of New York previous to 1784.
New York Church records is the greatest source for early vital records. These records generally include birth, marriage, death, baptism records and membership lists.
The New York State Vital Records, 1847-1849 collection has birth, marriage and death records for the years of 1847-1849. New York State enacted a law in 1847 to require school districts to record Vital Records including birth, marriage and death records within their districts. However, some areas completely ignored the law and others adhered to it, but generally did not keep complete records, even for the years that were recorded. Unfortunately this law was terminated in 1849.
New York Mortality Schedules were completed in the federal census records in 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. The New York State census records included mortality schedules in their 1855, 1865, and 1875 census records. In addition, New York State included veteran's mortality schedules in their 1865 state census records and marriage records in their 1865 and 1875 state census records.
Many New York vital records were lost or destroyed in fires making it even more challenging to find our New York ancestors. Perhaps these sources many be of great benefit to you in your quest in breaking down some of your brick walls.

Welcome and Introduction

First I want to take a minute to introduce myself. I have been transcribing and copying genealogy records full time now for about 3 years, and have been working on my own genealogy research for over 10 years. I moved to the Mohawk Valley region of New York State about a year and a half age so I could get closer to the real colonial American history, and have easier access to it's recorded history. Colonial American history is where my heart is.

New Horizons Genealogy was founded on the idea that we want to help you take your genealogy research to a new horizon, that was the idea on which our name came from. We want to bring to you the older and more overlooked records not often found on the larger subscription based genealogy websites. Some of our record collections include, Colonial and State Census Records, Census Record Mortality Schedules, 1847-1849 New York State Vital Records, Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records, Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions, New York State Cemetery Records, New York State Revolutionary War Soldier Burials , and 1840 Census of Pensioners that are currently inter-filed in with the Colonial and State Census Records. Our records span across three websites, New Horizons Genealogy, Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions and Mortality Schedules.

While we can't transcribe every record to make our collections complete, we fill in the gaps by linking to records transcribed by other transcribers. This way we can also attempt to get an inventory of what has been transcribed and not be duplicating the hard work of others. If you are a transcriber and have work you would like us to like to please add a link to our website in your website either on the home page or in a links page and email us and we will add a link to your transcribed records. If you were a person whom transcribed records for the genweb project and took them down for one reason or another and would like to post them on our website just send us the file and we would be happy to post them on our website. Please be advised we adhere to and all records we post are subject to the Digital Millennium Copywrite Act (DMCA).

Our websites are 100% free and here for your enjoyment. Please contact me with any comments and/or suggestions you may have concerning our websites.
--Lynn Tooley