Manhattan and the Hudson Palisades — New Amsterdam
Lower Manhattan, Chinatown, Hell's Kitchen, Fort Lee, Palisades Park. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.
Whose archive this ground was
| Years | Who held it | Whose archive that means |
|---|---|---|
| 1500–1624 | Before registers | no registers survive Before registers. |
| 1624–1664 | New Netherland — New Amsterdam | Nationaal Archief · FamilySearch The Dutch settled Manhattan in 1624 (the city seal says 1625); Fort Amsterdam was begun in 1625-26, and the purchase of Manhattan is documented in a letter of 7 November 1626. New Amsterdam received municipal rights on 2 February 1653. The colony's administrative records survive largely untranslated and have been translated since the 1970s by the New Netherland Institute. |
| 1664–1673 | English New York | The National Archives — Discovery · FamilySearch The English took the colony without a fight on 27 August 1664; the Articles of Surrender were signed on 6 September, and in June 1665 it was reincorporated as New York City. |
| 1673–1674 | New Orange | Nationaal Archief The Dutch retook the colony on 9 August 1673 and renamed it New Orange. The Treaty of Westminster of February 1674 returned it to England, with the transfer taking effect on 10 November 1674. |
| 1674–1776 | English colony of New York | The National Archives — Discovery · FamilySearch |
| 1776–1898 | United States — New York and New Jersey | National Archives Catalog (NARA) · FamilySearch · Ancestry Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. The Hudson is the line between New York and New Jersey, so Hudson Palisades towns such as Fort Lee are in New Jersey records. |
| 1898–2026 | City of New York | Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · FamilySearch · Ancestry Brooklyn, which had annexed Gravesend and Coney Island in 1894, became part of New York City in 1898. |
The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.
See the whole span, 1500–2026, on the map →
The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.