FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject New York/Tasks-Vital Records Ancestry

DESCRIPTION: This task involves searching for vital records available on Ancesty.com to be placed on county and town pages. INSTRUCTIONS 1. In New York, very few vital records are kept on the county level. Most are kept on the town level. However, it is important to check for county and town records in the event there are original records or abstracts. As you find vital record sources, add the information about the collections using the format given on this page. You will use the same guidelines for the county as you will for town vital records. 2. To locate available records, go to www.ancestry.com and once on the site


 * a. Find the “card catalog” listed under “search.”
 * b. At the card catalog, type the name of the county or town in the “Keyword(s)” field.
 * c. In the “Record Type” field choose “Birth, Marriage and Death Records.”

Note: There are not many county or town records on Ancestry, so do not be concerned if nothing is found. 3. Review the entries and add any original records under the appropriate headings. If there is only one original record, indent, but do not bullet. The date should be bolded. See the following example: :*1888-1907 Marriage records. :*1908–1920 Marriage records. For non-bulleted items remove the * :1888-1907 Marriage records.

4. For substitute records, such as abstracts, transcriptions, and indexes, list them under the appropriate heading. Add a sub-heading Substitute [type of record] records in bold. For books use Chicago Manual of Style. Use these guidelines: Chicago Manual of Style footnote style (modified): Book:


 * a. Author(s), followed by a comma
 * b. Title (book titles in italics, with correct capitalization)
 * c. Publication data in parenthesis: Publication place, followed by a colon; Publisher; Year of publication.
 * d. Comma, and the page number(s) followed by a period

Access information: (To find the access information, you will need to check WorldCat, Internet archive, and Google books to learn if these books are located there)


 * e. Link to free online copy, if any.
 * f. WorldCat template.
 * g. FHL template:.
 * h. Place a semi-colon between references. Add a period at the end.
 * i. Brief annotation explaining the content, or why, or how a reader would want to use the source.

Example: Marriages


 * ’’’1802-1855’’’ Earl Marmaduke, copied by George W. Cocks, ‘’Marriage Records, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York: Register of Marriages Performed by the Rev. Marmaduke Earle, 1793-1855. ‘’ Manuscript on film. (Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1941). Ancestry ($) ; HeritageQuest ($); ; . Earlier 1893-1801 marriages listed in the title were only performed at Stamford, Connecticut. Oyster Bay is located in Nassau County.

Substitute marriage records 1813–1850 Fred Q. Bowman,10,000 Vital Records of Central New York, (Balitimore,MD:Genealogical Pub. Co., 1986). Ancestry($); At various libraries; FHL Book 974.7 V2bf. Abstracted from newspaper marriage columns.