New York, New York City Births - FamilySearch Historical Records

What is in the Collection?
The collection consists of an index to birth records from New York City including Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Richmond boroughs. The collection covers the years 1846 to 1909.

This collection consists of manuscript material, still and moving images, ledger volumes, vital records, maps, blueprints, and sound recordings.

The collection includes vital records, census, and city directories to help patrons working on family history.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
These records generally contain the following information:


 * Name of child
 * Birth date
 * Birth place
 * Gender
 * Names of parents
 * Age of parents
 * Birthplace of parents
 * Registration date and place
 * Occupation of parents is sometimes listed

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know:
 * Name of the child
 * Other identifying information such as the birth date or the parents' names.

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page, New York, New York City Births, 1846-1909: Fill in the requested information on the search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the individuals in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to look at the information on several individuals comparing the information about them to your ancestors to make this determination. Keep in mind:


 * There may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * You may not be sure of your own ancestor’s name.
 * Your ancestor may have used different names, or variations of their name, throughout their life.
 * If your ancestor used an alias or a nickname, be sure to check for those alternate names.

For tips about searching on-line collections see the on-line article FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s birth record, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the birth date along with the place of birth to find the family in census records.
 * Use the residence and names of the parents to locate church and land records.
 * The father’s occupation can lead you to employment or other types of records such as military records.
 * The parents' birth places can tell you former residences and can help to establish a migration pattern for the family.
 * It is often helpful to extract the information on all children with the same parents.
 * If the surname is unusual, you may want to compile birth entries for every person of the same surname and sort them into families based on the names of the parents.
 * Continue to search the birth records to identify siblings, parents, and other relatives in the same or other generations who were born in the same county or nearby.
 * The information in birth records is usually reliable, but depends upon the reliability of the informant.
 * Earlier records may not contain as much information as the records created after the late 1800s.
 * There is also some variation in the information given from record to record.

I Can’t Find Who I’m Looking for, What Now?

 * Look for variant spellings of the names. You should also look for alias names, nicknames and abbreviated names.
 * Look for an index. There are often indexes at the beginning of each volume. Local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records.
 * Search the indexes and records of nearby localities.
 * Search the records of nearby military units.
 * Try alternative search methods such as only filling in the surname search box (or the given name search box) on the landing page leaving the other box empty and then click on search. This should return a list of everyone with that particular name. You could then browse the list for individuals that may be your ancestor.

Citing This Collection
Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Identifying your sources helps others find the records you used.


 * Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry): Top of Page