Record Atlas
6 eras · 1614–2026 · 67 places

New York — New Netherland, the Hudson Valley, Long Island and the north

New York City, Long Island, Albany, the Hudson Valley, Plattsburgh. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1614–1664 New Netherland — Dutch West India Company, a province of the Dutch Republic from 1624 no registers survive

The surviving New Netherland records are held by the New York State Archives in Albany, and translation of them has been published since 1974 by the New Netherland Project. Rensselaerswyck, the patroonship on the upper Hudson, began with land purchases in 1630 and covered most of what became Albany and Rensselaer counties.
1664–1673 Province of New York — the Duke of York's proprietary no registers survive

English forces took New Amsterdam in 1664 (dated 27 August or September 1664 depending on the source) and the province was named for its proprietor, the Duke of York. The Treaty of Breda of 23 July 1667 ended the war that had brought the capture.
1673–1674 Dutch reconquest of New York no registers survive

The Dutch retook the colony on 9 August 1673, and the Treaty of Westminster of 19 February 1674 returned it to England.
1674–1776 Province of New York — proprietary, then royal from 1685 FamilySearch

The first colonial assembly was created in October 1683 and the province was divided into twelve counties on 1 November 1683; New York was part of the Dominion of New England from May 1688 to 1689. The governor's patent of 1685 made Rensselaerswyck a legal entity. The 1911 State Capitol fire destroyed much of the English colonial executive record held by the State Library, so surviving series are incomplete.
1776–1881 State of New York FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America · Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation

New York declared itself a state in 1776, adopted its first constitution in 1777 and ratified the US Constitution on 26 July 1788. A statewide registration law of 1847 failed through uneven compliance, so births, marriages and deaths before 1880-81 are found in church, cemetery and local records.
1881–2026 State of New York FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America · Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation

Statewide registration outside New York City began in 1880-81 (deaths from June 1880, births and marriages from 1881 depending on the source). New York City files its own birth and death certificates, and for Albany, Buffalo and Yonkers the state holds none before 1 January 1914. The state does hold births for Queens and Richmond for 1881-1897.

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, 1614–2026, 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.

67 places on this ground

1856 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 1796 more.

All record regions · The map