NYC Records at Your Local Family History Center

I visited my local family history center this week and found that the vital records and 1890 police census for NYC previously filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah were now available for viewing, printing and downloading on site at the family history center. 

I had previously obtained these documents over the years through various methods; ordering from and/or visiting from NYC Municipal Archives, borrowing films from the Family History Library and making the copies here locally or ordering copies from the now defunct copy service formerly available through the FHL. A few years ago these Department of Health births, deaths and marriages were available as transcriptions through www.FamilySearch.org 

The transcriptions alerted me to a lot of relations that had previously been impossible to find. It also revealed several relatives that were previously unknown. This latest improvement makes it possible to find a record on FamilySearch and then go to a family history center or an affiliated library and viewed a cleaned up scan of that exact document from FamilySearch. No more ordering a $15 certified copy from Municipal Archives or a $2 copy from the FHL. 

I have now gone through and updated many previously xeroxed and scanned images for my slideshow presentations thanks to this new availability of records at FamilySearch.org It was amazing to have two images of the same document side by side and see how much crisper the digital images are online. 

There is a PDF going around by Ann Donnelly, New York City Vital Record Images Finding Aid UPDATED. God bless her. Ms. Donnelly details how this all works and that while you can find a birth entry for example James Mulcahy, son of Patrick Mulcahy and Bridget McGinn in 1905 at FamilySearch in the transcribed database, you will actually have to go to the FHL Catalog and go through the process of what one formerly did to order the FHL microfilm. At that juncture there will be an icon and by pressing it at the FHC or affiliated library, the digital images are opened and one can very easily navigate the images and quickly download the birth certificate for this little boy. Sadly, he was very short lived and one can repeat the process and find his death transcribed just a fortnight later the son of Patrick and Bridget Mulcahy. Repeat the process of identifying what film number the Manhattan deaths for 1905 are for his death certificate number which was listed in the notes at his transcription. 

Here is a good example  where two events involving the same three people just two weeks apart recorded vastly different information. The birth certificate includes the names of both parents including the mother’s maiden name. The death certificate includes the names of both parents but only lists the mother with her married name. Ten months later his first cousin died in NYC also and her death certificate and every one since then has also listed the maiden name of the decedent’s mother.

Lastly, one might hope to find a Department of Health marriage certificate for his parents but there is none. Theirs was one of many Catholic weddings that were never recorded in the civil records. Hopefully, this marriage date will be discovered in the near future when the Archdiocese of New York’s sacramental records become viewable online at www.FindMyPast.com in the near future.