New York Biography

Online Resources

 * County and Town Histories, includes biographies
 * American Biographical Library for New York ($)
 * Colonial Immigration Records at NYG&B ($) - has vital information and biographical sketches
 * Early Settlers of New York State, Vol. I ($)
 * Early Settlers of New York State, Vol. II ($)
 * Who's who in New York City and State : a biographical dictionary of contemporaries, ($) index/images
 * New York Genealogical &amp; Biographical Society Member Biographies, index or Browse Images, ($)
 * NORTHERN NEW YORK:Genealogical and family history of northern New York: a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, index
 * New York Genealogy county histories with biographies
 * New York Genealogy
 * New York State Library Biography Resources
 * Famous families of New York; historical and biographical sketches of families which in successive generations have been identified with the development of the nation, by Margherita Arlina Hamm... Vol. 1 1902, Vol. 2

Biographies in Local Histories

 * Biographical information is often found in state, county, and town histories.
 * Towards the end of the 19th century, began publishers soliciting short biographical/family histories from local founding families, offering to publish them in an upcoming local history. This then became an incentive for family members to buy a copy of the book.
 * Families represented were not necessarily prominent. Practically everyone living there, especially in the Midwest, counted as an early settler.
 * These biographies often start with the first member of the family to settle in the area, and detail their descendants at the time of publishing. They may tell where the family moved in from. Children's marriages often are given, with maiden names included.

Finding Biographies

 * The county Wiki page lists several county histories. It also lists local libraries, and societies which probably have copies of local histories.
 * Many histories are no longer under copyright and can be found in the following online, digitized book collections. Search with keywords "History" and "the name of your locality" (state, county, or town).
 * FamilySearch Books
 * Google Books
 * World Cat
 * HathiTrust
 * Internet Archive
 * The FamilySearch library has extensive collections of these local histories. Many are digitized. Search the FamilySearch Catalog under your locality for the topics "Biography" and "History".

The New York State Library
The New York State Library and New York Public Library have extensive collections of published biographies. There are numerous state, regional, and county histories with biographical information, but there is no comprehensive index to these.

New York State Biographical, Genealogical, and Portrait Index 

This index, compiled by Gunther Pohl, is an excellent resource. It is a card index to over 500,000 names from more than 6,000 sources:


 * Histories
 * Biographical compendia
 * Periodicals
 * Atlases
 * Other sources.

Biographical Encyclopedias
Many state, regional, and county biographical encyclopedias are included in the Genealogy and Local History collection described in New York History.

The following are examples of excellent biographical encyclopedias for New York:


 * Fitch, Charles Elliott. Encyclopedia of Biography of New York. Four Volumes. New York, New York: American Historical Society, 1916. One to two page sketches.
 * Janet Foley, Early Settlers of New York State: Their Ancestors and Descendants, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub., 1993). ..
 * Greene Nelson ed. History of the Mohawk Valley . . . 1614–1925. Four Volumes. (Chicago, Illinois: S. J. Clark Publishing, 1925.) Volumes three and four are biographical. Half- to one-page sketches.
 * Greene, Nelson. History of the Valley of the Hudson . . . 1609–1930. Five Volumes. (Chicago, Illinois: S. J. Clarke Publishing, 1931.) Volumes three to five are biographical with one- to two-page sketches.
 * Hamm, Margherita Arlina. Famous Families of New York. Two Volumes. (New York, New York and London, England: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902.) Digitized version available through FamilySearch Catalog entry. Also on . About a dozen pages per family and usually including several generations.