New York Archives, Societies & Publications

It is a good idea to familiarize personally with just about any repository in New York that you simply might travel to by communicating with to the best suited archive or library in advance.

Most, if not all, New York repositories have written and published content that present its collections as well as research policy.

New York archives and historical organizations usually have On-line sites that provide equivalent details. Several also contain down loadable data for some or parts of their collections.

Table of Contents hide
List of New York Archives
List of New York Libraries & Museums
List of New York Historical & Genealogical Societies
Regional and State Societies
County, Township and City Societies
Religious and Ethnic Societies
New York Newspapers & Publications
Newspapers
Periodicals
Books

List of New York Archives

List of New York Libraries & Museums

  • 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.
  • Rochester Public Library, 115 South Avenue, Rochester, New York 14604
  • 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.
  • Bronx Library Center, New York Public Library, 310 East Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, New York 10458; Phone: 718-579-4244
  •  Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011; 917-606-8217; gi@cjh.org
  • Lehman College Library of the City, University of New York, 250 Bedford Park Blvd, West, Bronx, New York 10468-1589; Phone: 718-960-8577 and 718-960-7766
  • 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.
  • Adirondack History Center Museum, 7590 Court Street, P.O. Box 428, Elizabethtown, NY 12932, Phone: 518-873-6466, Open by appointment only Cemetery index, special collection library, some census on microfilm, maps, photographs, newspaper collection, and biographies.
  • Afton Museum, Afton, NY, 607-639-1625
  • Bevier House Museum , 2682 Route 209,, Marbletown, New York, Telephone: 845-338-5614
  • Coventry Museum, Coventry, NY, 607-656-9517
  • Chemung Valley History Museum, 415 E. Water Street, Elmira, NY 14901
  • Durham Center Museum, Route 145, , P.O. Box 192 , East Durham, NY 12423, Phone: (518) 239-8461 or (518)239-4081; The museum has two major collections of records known as the Rossi records and the Staats records. They also have cemetery records, family Bibles, family files, church records, Scrapbooks, local history books, board of supervisor’s rolls, assessment rolls, genealogical newsletters, pictures, maps and more. Records focus on Green, Albany, and Columbia Counties.
  • Dunkirk Historical Museum , 513 Washington Avenue , Dunkirk, NY 14048 , Phone: (716) 366-3797
  • Fulton County Museum, 237 North Kingsboro Avenue, Gloversville, NY 12078-1428, Phone: 518-725-2203
  • Schuyler County Historical Society Museum, 108 N. Catharine Street (Rt. 14), P.O. Box 651, Montour Falls, New York 14865, Phone: 607-535-9741,
  • Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, 814 Broad Street, Salamanca, NY 14779, Phone: (716) 945-1760
  • Staten Island Museum, aka Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, History Library and Archives, 75 Stuyvesant Place, Staten Island, New York 10301, Phone: 718-727-1135 ext. 122
  • Yorker Museum, Park & Church , Sherman, NY 14781, (716) 761-6789 or (716) (716) 287-3963
  • Museum of Wayne County History, 21 Butternut Street, Lyons, New York 14489, Phone: 315-946-4943
  • Heritage Square Museum, 7147 Ontario Center Road, Ontario, New York 14519
  • The Museums of Historic Palmyra, 132 Market Street, Palmyra, New York 14522, Phone: 315-597-6981

List of New York Historical & Genealogical Societies

For almost every state there is a state genealogical society, a state genealogical council, or both.

In addition to their own work, New York groups many times help coordinate the efforts of local societies throughout the New York.

Their unique publications, newsletters and quarterlies, supplement those created through the area societies.

Regional and State 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.
  • Capital District Genealogical Society, Empire State Plaza Station, PO Box 2175, Albany, NY 12220-0175
  • The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 122 East 58th Street, New York, New York 10022-1939; 212-755-8532; 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.
  • New York State Historical Association, West Lake Road, P.O. Box 800, Cooperstown, New York, 13326-0800
  • Northeastern New York Genealogical Society, PO Box 4264, Queensbury, NY 12804-1422
  • Northern New York American Canadian Genealogical Society, 15 Vine Street, P.O. Box 1256, Keeseville, NY 12944, Phone: 518-834-5401; Primarily a French Canadian collection. Church records, censuses, allied genealogical societies publications, genealogies, histories, cemetery records, and parish marriages in Quebec
  • 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.
  • Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierpont Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201
  • Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court, Buffalo, New York 14216
  • 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 Society of Daughters of the American Revolution
  • New York Society of Sons of the American Revolution

County, Township and City Societies

Religious and Ethnic Societies

  • Afro-american Historical & Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 022340, Brooklyn 11202-2340

New York Newspapers & Publications

New York Genealogical publications (magazines, newsletters, periodicals, books, etc.) contain all types of invaluable information about specific ancestors, whole lineages and families, places in time, and about all sorts of genealogical records and repositories.

Newspapers

Periodicals

Genealogical journals provide you with plenty of sources of information and facts, they are generally overlooked by genealogy and family history researchers and genealogist in looking around for family history.

Many regional and county genealogical and/or historical societies produce periodicals which have records relating to the region or vicinity they operate.

Frequently these publications have articles involving records that are not obtainable somewhere else.

  • 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.
  • Chautauqua County Genealogical Society The Chautauqua Genealogist
  • 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.

Books