Brooklyn Historical Society

United States New York  Archives and Libraries Brooklyn Historical Society

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Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/ask.html www.brooklynhistory.org/library/ask.html]

Address:


 * 128 Pierrepont Street at Clinton Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

Telephone:Tel: +1-718-222-4111 Fax: +1-718-222-3794

Hours and holidays: Wednesday - Friday: 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.


 * Special Summer Hours: the library and museum are open until 8 p.m. the last Thursday of the month.
 * Contact the library prior to visit. General admission provides access to all current exhibitions, public programs and the library area during Library hours.

Directions, maps, and public transportation:  Public transportation is recommended due to limited parking.


 * Map
 * Subway: 2,3,4,5 to Borough Hall, A,C,F to Jay St/Borough Hall, or M,R to Court St.
 * Bus:

North – South: B 38, B52, B25, B26, B41 to Montague/Court Street East – West: B 67, B65 to Jay Street From Manhattan: B51 City Hall to Court St. /Cadman Plaza WEEKDAY SERVICE ONLY


 * From Brooklyn: Take the Belt Parkway West., which becomes Brooklyn Queens Expressway/I-278 East, to Atlantic Avenue (exit 27). Turn slight right onto Atlantic Avenue. Turn left onto Clinton Street for seven blocks to Pierrepont Street.
 * From Manhattan: Take the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza West ramp. Go straight ahead onto Middagh Street. Turn left onto Henry Street for six blocks. Turn left onto Pierrepont Street.
 * Parking: There is limited on-street parking in the neighborhood as well as several garages: Manhattan Parking, 40 Clinton St., between Pierrepont and Cadman Plaza West; 300 Cadman Plaza West, between Clinton and Pierrepont; and Ultra on Montague between Clinton and Court.
 * Bicycles: There are designated bike lanes along Clinton and Henry Streets leading to the Brooklyn Historical Society. Public bicycle racks may be found along Montague Street, one block from BHS.

Internet sites and databases:


 * Brooklyn Historical Society Internet site-Home: Museum, Library, Blog, Public Programs, Calendar, Contact Us, Online Store, Exhibits, Current BHS Projects, Professional Development Workshops, Donations, Books, Publications, Newsletter.
 * Contact Us
 * Bobcat - online catalog. Use this to search books, periodicals, and maps. Bobcat is found on a different website as it is a cooperative catalog hosted by NYU.
 * NYU Finding Aid Portal: Use this to search for finding aids to processed archival, manuscript, oral history, and photographic collections. This is found on a different website as it is a cooperative catalog hosted by NYU.
 * Emma: Use this to search for archives, manuscripts, oral histories, photographs, library collections, and special collections.
 * Online Image Gallery: Use this to search for individual photographs. A small number of our images are currently available online, but more images are added regularly.

Collection Description
The Brooklyn Historical Society's (BHS) mission is to discover, procure, and preserve whatever may relate to general history, especially the natural, civil, literary, and ecclesiastical history of the United States, the State of New York, and more particularly of the counties, towns, and villages of Long Island. The collection includes finding aids and collections guides to archives, manuscripts, oral histories, photographs, paintings, oral history database, and maps which document property ownership and street expansion in central and southern Brooklyn.

Tips

 * Finding Aids, Image and Oral History databases can be used anytime the library is open, no appointment necessary.
 * New admission policy will be in effect throughout the duration of our remodeling project, from July 2012 through August 2013.

Guides

 * Online Guide: Detailed listing of resources which are most frequently consulted by genealogists and family historians. Finding Aids, Image and Oral History databases can be used anytime the library is open, no appointment necessary.

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a source at the , a similar source may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * New York Public Library Genealogy Division in Manhattan has an outstanding collection of American history at national, state and local levels; international genealogy and heraldry in Roman alphabets; Dorot Jewish collection; photos; New York censuses, directories, and vital records. They also have the Holland Land Company deeds.*New York Public Library Branches over 90 in New York City.
 * New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), Boston, national in scope. Over 100 million name database, of vital records, genealogies, journals, over 200,000 books, 100,000 microfilms, and over 20 million manuscripts with emphasis on New England and a good New York collection since the 1600s.
 * National Archives at New York City, has Holland Land Company deeds, federal censuses, Ancestry.com, military, pensions, bounty land, photos, passenger indexes, New York port and shipping, naturalizations, inventions.
 * Stadsarchief Amsterdam (Amsterdam Municipal Archives in the Netherlands) Some of the earliest New York City (New Netherland) records are also stored here. Also, the earliest European New York settlers often lived in Amsterdam before their move to the New World. Includes the Holland Land Company 1801-1840 deeds from western New York state, and northwestern Pennsylvania.
 * Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 85,000 volumes about the Jewish Holocaust, largest yizkor book collection.

Similar Collections


 * Bronx County Historical Society has a large manuscript collection, biographical files, family folders, obituaries, cemetery transcripts, city directories, and marriages.
 * Queens Historical Society, Flushing, This large facility has many indexes to biographical and historical sources in their collection.
 * Staten Island Historical Society is the best place for Staten Island research. Because many immigrants settled there, they have a strong immigration collection.

Neighboring Collections


 * New York City Department of Records has New York County Brooklyn births 1866-1909, marriages 1866-1937, deaths 1847-1853, 1877-1948, city directories; voter registrations; almshouse records; and municipal government records.
 * NYC Health Department has Kings County (Brooklyn) births 1910-present, and deaths 1949-present.
 * The City of New York: Office of the City Clerk has Kings County (Brooklyn) marriages 1930-present.
 * Supreme Court, Civil Branch, Kings County Clerk has Kings County (Brooklyn) divorces and other civil case records.
 * Kings County Surrogate's Court has Kings County (Brooklyn) probate records.
 * NYC Office of the City Register has New York County (Manhattan) land records.
 * New York City Municipal Reference and Research Center can provide street name origins, city council minutes, serials, books, and 400,000 documents focused on the history of New York City.
 * U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York has recent civil, criminal, and bankruptcy cases for Kings County (Brooklyn).
 * Brooklyn New York Family History Center has premium online services for free, and offers research suggestions.
 * Children's Aid Society, NYC, an institution which from 1853-1930 sent children on orphan trains to homes in other parts of America and Canada. The New-York Historical Society has most of the CAS archival records.
 * Holland Society of New York, NYC, has 7,000 New Netherland family and local history books, Dutch Reformed Church records. Good collection for other ethnic groups along the Atlantic coast.
 * Huguenot Society of America, NYC, open by appointment: history, settlement, genealogy, biography, theology. They have the largest Huguenot collection outside London, including 1600s records of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and colonial America.
 * Leo Baeck Institute, NYC, preserves family and community histories about Jews in German speaking countries.
 * New York Foundling Hospital, NYC, an orphan train sending institution, can do records research for close relatives only. NYHS houses some of their records.
 * New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, NYC, has donated their collection to the New York Public Library. NYGBS now offers educational programs, publications, and digital communication.
 * New-York Historical Society, NYC, houses the Children's Aid Society archives, and some New York Foundling Hospital records, both orphan train sending institutions, as well as has the largest manuscript collection in New York State, many town records, colonial records, newspapers, periodicals, biographies, histories, directories, maps, photos.
 * YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC, East European Jewish immigrant studies, gazetteers, yizkor books (Holocaust town memorial books), biographical directories, Landsmanshaft records.
 * Repositories in surrounding counties: in New York State: New York, Queens, Richmond (Staten Island), and in New Jersey: Essex, Hudson, and Union.
 * Albany Institute of History and Art with the best indexes and colonial Albany records of the 1600s.
 * Archives of the Archdiocese of New York, Yonkers, includes parish register births, confirmations, marriages, and deaths, school records, and leadership papers.
 * Buffalo and Erie County Public Library has a good collection with good indexes including biographies, family folders, county and local histories for all of New York.
 * Cornell University Library, Ithaca, has a large collection of Protestant church records for western New York as well as an excellent collection of histories, maps, newspapers, and New York censuses. Rare books and manuscripts are outstanding, and they publish the best research guides to New York counties.
 * Historic Hudson Valley Library, Tarrytown, has unique early Hudson River migration sources such as steamboats, industries, and culture.
 * Montgomery County Department of History and Archives, early Montgomery (formerly Tryon) County had jurisdiction over much of upstate New York. These archives have an extensive genealogy section.
 * New York State Archives, Albany, has manuscripts, vital record indexes, land grants, maps, military, court, alien depositions, prisoners, Erie Canal passenger lists, wills, estates, and state censuses.
 * New York State Library, Albany, has local histories, genealogies, atlases, church, cemetery (including DAR), city directories, microfilmed newspapers, censuses, passenger lists, periodicals, and copies of the Holland Land Company deeds.
 * Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, has the best collection of family folders (10,000) on the East Coast
 * SUNY Fredonia Reed Library preserves most of the original deeds of the Holland Land Company in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania.
 * Steele Memorial Library, Elmira, has a good collection of indexes to biographies, genealogies, family folders, books, periodicals, and manuscripts.
 * Vital Records Section of the New York State Department of Health, Menands, NY, for outside New York City births and deaths (1881-present), and marriage licenses (1880-present). Also, all divorces since 1963.
 * Repositories in surrounding states (or provinces): Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec, and Vermont.
 * Library of Congress, Washington, DC, the world's largest library including 50,000 genealogies, 100,000 local histories, and collections of manuscripts, microfilms, maps, newspapers, photographs, and published material, strong in North America and New York (such as the Holland Land Company deeds), the British Isles, and German sources.