Hudson County, New Jersey Genealogy

United States New Jersey  Hudson County

County Courthouse
Hudson County Courthouse 583 Newark Ave Jersey City, NJ 07306 Phone: 201.795.6112 Register of Deeds has land records; Clerk Surrogate Court has probate records

Quick Facts
At the time of European contact in the 17th century, Hudson County was the territory the Lenape or Lenni-Lenape, namely the bands (or family groups) known as the Hackensack, the Tappan, the Raritan, and the Manhattan. They were a seasonally migrational people who practiced small-scale agriculture (companion planting) augmented by hunting and gathering which likely, given the topography of the area, included much (shell)fishing and trapping. These groups had early and frequent contact with the by Europeans, with whom they engaged in trade. Their Algonquian language can still be inferred in many local place names such as Communipaw, Harsimus, Hackensack, Hoboken, Weehawken, Secaucus, and Pamrapo.

Henry Hudson, for whom the county and river on which it sits is named, established a claim for the area in 1609 when anchoring his ship the Halve Maen (Half Moon) at Harsimus Cove and Weehawken Cove. The west bank of the North River (as it was called) and the cliffs, hills, and marshlands abutting and beyond it, were settled by Europeans (Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, Huguenot) from the Lowlands around the same time as New Amsterdam.

Parent County
22 February 1840: formed from Bergen County.

Boundary Changes
1852: part of Harrison twp. returned to Bergen County as Union twp.  1892: water boundary clarified.

Church History and Records

 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
 * Hoboken
 * Hoboken Dist

Census

 * 1890


 * 1905

Military
Civil War service men in Hudson County served in various regiments. Men often joined a company (within a regiment) that originated in their county.


 * See: 102nd Regiment, New York Infantry

Newspapers

 * Bayonne Herald - full-text of more than 1800 issues spanning 1869-1915 freely available via Google Newspaper Archive

Obtaining Copies of County Probate Records
Copies of recorded probate records and the estate files can be obtained from the surrogate's offices for a fee. Addresses of surrogate's offices are found in:


 * Eichholz, Alice, Editor. Ancestry's Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. Revised Edition. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, 1992. (.) Explains state-by-state history, vital records, census, background sources, periodicals, archives, libraries, societies, maps, land, probate, court, tax, cemetery, church, and military records. Includes county boundary map and table which shows when each county was created and the parent counties.

In addition, copies of the original wills, administrations, inventories, and guardianships sent to Trenton since 1901 can be ordered from:


 * Clerk of the Superior Court
 * Records Information Center
 * P.O. Box 967
 * Trenton, NJ 08625-0967
 * Telephone: 609-292-4978
 * Fax: 609-777-0094
 * Internet: http://www.answers.com/topic/new-jersey-superior-court

Societies, Libraries and Museums

 * Hudson County Genealogical Society
 * Afro-American Historical and Cultural Society Museum
 * Ellis Island Immigration Museum
 * Hoboken Historical Museum

Family History Centers

 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers
 * Union City New Jersey Family History Center

Websites

 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.