A few days ago, on the morning of Wednesday, March 16, an event happened equivalent to the likes of "the day hell froze over." An exaggeration? Not much.
That morning, the New York City Department of Records and Information Services launched a new website page ... The NYC Historical Vital Records Project -- with 70% of an estimated 13.3 million records already online. These are searchable WITH digitized images (some in color) for free! (We did say hell froze over.)
What is included? Check the Digital Vital Records menu tab. Under each record type (Births, Deaths, Marriages) there are breakdowns by borough -- Bronx, Kings (Brooklyn), Manhattan, Queens, Richmond (Staten Island) -- showing a bar chart of digitized, not digitized and not available covering the time span of years for the full-page certificates in the collection. Note that Registers/Ledger Books for years prior to 1898 are on microfilm viewable in-person. There is less information in the register format than in the certificate format. If your record type/time period is not online yet be patient. (We know how to do that, right?)
Regardless, thank you NYC for finally making these records available. It is a good start. We are still wanting the older records. And thank you to organizations like Reclaim the Records for its efforts with getting government entities around the country to make records available.
So how do you use this new site? Well, try the search.
There are two main ways: by Certificate Number and by Last Name. But remember this is not a fancy site, the surname may not have been read correctly or it may not be spelled on the record the way you know it. You can reach the search either by the right-side of the main blue bar, or by the Search beta tab in the toolbar/menu above the blue bar.
Initially you have to pick a record type and you have to pick a borough to search.
After you get results, you can discard the borough and/or record type and update your results.
When you find your desired records, click and it will be presented as a PDF which you can download ... for FREE!
Our chosen example has a local connection to Macomb County. This is the marriage record for the founding couple Adam and Victoria of Olejnik Farms and Greenhouses on 23 Mile Road. The family-owned farm celebrated its 95th year in business last year.
One tip we have is if you are having trouble finding your people and you have Ancestry.com or access to Ancestry Library Edition, use the various data collections for the indexes for New York, New York and Ancestry's soundex and other similar filter capabilities for the names. For example:
New York, New York, U.S., Index to Death Certificates, 1862-1948
New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909
New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937
New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018
New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Death Index, 1862-1948
New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Birth Index, 1878-1909
There are a few other additional data collections for New York City vital records indexes under the New York collections too. And the webpage for the project has a few additional tips as well.
Have fun and good luck searching!
See you soon someday at our favorite library!
LE
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