Description
I can search the New York State Vital Records Indexes at the State Archives for a listing of your ancestor’s birth, death, or marriage in upstate NY. These indexes list the date, place and certificate number for each event providing information that will help with ordering the actual certificate. For example, when you are uncertain about the location of an event in your ancestor’s life, checking the Vital Records Indexes may be helpful.
The indexes cover the entire state outside of New York City and start in June 1880 (deaths) or 1881 (marriages and births); birth indexes are made available by the NYS Dept of Health after 75 years, marriage and death indexes after 50 years. [Note that the indexes do NOT have information for the cities of Albany, Buffalo, or Yonkers prior to 1/1/1914].
Within one to two weeks, I will provide a report with the results of my search including all possible matches for the ancestor you are seeking during the time period requested. The actual certificate can be ordered from the Town Clerk’s Office or from the NYS Dept of Health.
There is a chance that your ancestor’s event is not recorded in the index (or it is recorded under an alternate spelling). I will search carefully based on the information you provide in an attempt to locate them. Because the time is the same whether an ancestor is located or not, there isn’t a separate fee for “not found”. In either case I will provide a detailed report of what I searched.
