Too many government agencies and archives have long treated genealogists as if we were asking them for a favor when we ask to see their records â our records â rather than recognizing their responsibilities to the public under the law. Also note that the original handwritten ledger indices for the 1930-1972 licenses, which were previously only available on microfilm, have now been digitally scanned and were put online in early 2017. I found certain people in this database, but I know they were not married in New York City between 1950 and 2017! The spreadsheets' cells and columns were in text format even in cases where it was inappropriate, such as the column for license sequence (license ID numbers) which were a series of integers. Soundalike surnames and spelling variants are automatically searched. Items in Cart: 0. Marriages filed before 1930 are maintained at the New York City Municipal Archive which can be requested in person or by mail. This is a three-page (occasionally four-page) document set originally issued by the New York City Clerk's Office. The 1908-1929 index microfilms were recently digitized and put online for free public use; they were won in a 2015 Freedom of Information lawsuit. Their copy of this database also includes information about the bride's and groom's dates of birth, while this one does not, and perhaps they can do a look-up on those fields for you to help you track down a stubbornly missing record. But please let us know how you're using it, so we can link to your website or project, and show off all the cool stuff people have done with this open data. Help adoptees obtain available non-identifying information about their birth parents. The license sequence number alone could not be used, as it was only unique within each year and possibly within each borough, and we could not be sure there were any internal database constraints to ensure it was actually a unique field. For example, people whose surname was "McMann" or other names starting with "Mc" may have had their names listed in the database as "Mc Mann" (with a space after the "Mc"), which would make finding these records more difficult. This data was provided to the not-for-profit activist group Reclaim The Records by the New York City Clerk's Office. Read more about the known problems with the data. It took us nine months, many e-mails, and one lawsuit. For example, someone named "Louise Karen Jones" who married in the 1960's would have had her given name recorded as either "Louise" or "Louise Karen" and her middle name recorded as, There's another unexplained column in those files called. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention â National Center for Health Statistics. Sometimes there will be a space before the suffix, sometimes a comma and a space, sometimes just a comma. The New York City Clerk's Office built this database for their own in-house use. Sometimes when you are building a family tree, certain information is not readily available, and the perfect place to find much of this information is in New York Marriage Records. Each record contains the names of bride and groom, marriage date, marriage location, residence, and newspaper in which the notice appeared. Legally it isn't, and we will not assist you in censoring public documents. Compliance with the law was incomplete until 1913 or even later; therefore certificates are lacking for many events. To obtain a Marriage Record by mail, please call the main office at 212-669-8090 to request a form or download the Marriage Record mail request form. For information about FOIL and access to other Department of Health information, please visit the following link. This is a three-page (occasionally four-page) document set originally issued by the New York City Clerk's Office. The files were later moved to the New York City Municipal Archives. Copies of these marriages were then filed with the State Department of Health. These include Onondaga County marriage licenses, certificates, registries, and vital record indexes. Each spreadsheet file had multiple sheets of data within it, and each sheet had a maximum of 65,000 entries on it. No database exists (yet) for pre-1950 licenses, but the original handwritten ledgers were microfilmed. In other words, the cells had not been "trimmed". This is a two-page document set originally issued by the New York City Health Department. The New York City Municipal Archives (operated by the Department of Records and Information Services, or DORIS) houses the largest collection of birth, marriage, and death records for New York City, but other collections do exist elsewhe… New York is very unusual in that the City and the State are two totally separate vital records jurisdictions. Interested in learning more about Reclaim The Records and our work to obtain genealogical and archival data through state Freedom of Information requests? Licenses were valid for several weeks. Read all about it! But, luckily, New York Marriage Records can now be pulled out in just a few minutes even within the privacy of one’s home. Outside New York State: Welcome to the first searchable database of the 4,757,588 marriage licenses filed in New York City between 1950-2017. And the 1930-1972 index microfilms were won in a separate 2016 Freedom of Information lawsuit, and were uploaded to the Internet Archive in early 2017. The index files created by the New York City Clerk's Office clearly had some problems with the quality of their data: Yes, in most states, a basic marriage license "log" or marriage license index is considered to be public information, even if the actual certificates or licenses may have strict privacy rules under the state's vital records laws. Please note -- we cannot provide a record or verify the existence or facts of a record based on email requests. The year range represents most of the records. Again, this is a database of licenses. The New York Archivesas well as nine other repositories in New York hold copies of microfiche indexes to marriages certificates. Their version of the database also includes two columns for the spouses' dates of birth, which were removed for privacy reasons before handing the data over as part of the legal settlement. Data is available for 1950-2017. More results and pagination coming soon. Additional information on how to request the birth certificate will be made available on the New York Department of Health website. We turned the six original .XLS spreadsheets into five very large and basically-cleaned-up .CSV files, one for each borough, all ready for people to use in applications, data analysis, or their own research. New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937 New York City Marriages, 1600s-1800s not complete, but has over 400,000 names. Over the last few years, many people and organizations have been publishing Public Marriage Records archives on the Internet, some with thousands of Marriages Records.Others with millions marraigesrecords but when you actually do a search you will experience that those databases are not realistic. Starting in 1881, New York required that village, town, and city clerks record marriages. Read more about the known problems with the data. A tiny number of people in this database may have applied for and received a license from the City -- sometimes even more than once! It is possible that some people could have applied for a license in December of one year, but married in January of the next year. This measure (S3419/A5494) helps ensures that all adult New York adoptees will have the same unimpeded right to information about their birth and biological parents. The NYC Department of Personnel began a partnership registry for city employees in August 1988, and the City Clerk's Office began a formal registry for the general public in January 1993. How did this data get online? New York City marriage records that are more than fifty years old are considered to be public documents, and all basic marriage index files are open to the public without any year restrictions. Here's how to find them. Contact one of these ten repositories (listed on the State Archives website) to se… In the event that you can't find someone in this text database, you may wish to look through those original index images instead. NEW YORK CITY BRIDES RECORD Index Bronx, Kings and Queens County Brides Selected years of the Bronx, Kings and Queens County brides marriage records. Due to privacy laws, recent records may not be displayed. Marriage records from 1930 to 1995 can only be obtained from the Manhattan Office. New York County (Manhattan), Kings County (Brooklyn), Bronx County (The Bronx), Richmond County (Staten Island), and Queens County (Queens), contact: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene or New York City Marriage Bureau. Be aware that there are, a new Freedom of Information records request, read the whole story, along with copies of the actual court filings, here, Read more about the many different kinds of New York City marriage records. Birth, Marriage, and Death Records. New York City is considered to be an entirely separate vital records jurisdiction from the rest of New York state, and consequently the city has its own birth, marriage, and death indices. The whole records retrieval procedure at the government agencies may take weeks as expected. ** This data was released to the public through a successful Freedom of Information request and lawsuit filed by Reclaim The Records, settled with the New York City Clerk's Office in mid-2018. I still can't find a person in this database, and I really think that they should be in there. Find Onondaga County Marriage Records Onondaga County Marriage Records are official documents that contain information about marriages certified in Onondaga County, New York. The suffixes were unfortunately included in the surname column directly, not in their own column. New York Marriage License Records. The year listed for certain people's license is wrong; the database lists the year before they were married? New York, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1847-1849, 1907-1936. Description. The index includes the following years: Manhattan Grooms 1866-1907 to 1866-1936. Reclaim The Records is changing that. New York City marriage records that are more than fifty years old are considered to be public documents, and all basic marriage index files are open to the public without any year restrictions. Learn more about what we do. Note: Same-sex marriages registered in New York City after June 2011 will be included with the marriage licenses, not with this data set. New York City Vital Records New York City Vital Records Indexes. Learn more about our work. You usually need to know the full name of at least one of the two, though some public records let you search for certificates based on the date of the marriage ceremony. Parishes covered: 269 - click here to see the full list(329,000 baptism records from 60+ parishes added 1/31/2019) Years covered: 1787 - 1918 Counties covered: Bronx County, Dutchess County, New York County (Manhattan), Orange County, Putnam County, Richmond County (Staten Island), Rockland County, Sullivan County, Ulster County, and Westchester County Each transcript contains the following information: 1. It's free, public, open data. If you like what weâre doing, if you want to see more records returned to the public domain, and if you want to see this approach brought to more record sets in more states, we hope youâll consider making a contribution to our work. First name(s… The spreadsheets' data clearly had some cells where there was extra space(s) before and/or after the text of the cell. This is a database of an index to 3,124,595 marriage licenses filed in New York City between 1950-1995. There are many known problems, both with the format and the contents. Those index images are not text-searchable, but they're sorted by borough and by year, and then are arranged by quarter of the year, and then are listed alphabetically by surname, so they're not too difficult to use. If you have questions or comments you may contact New York State Vital Records by email at vr@health.ny.gov or by telephone, toll-free, at 855-322-1022. Here's what you should know. Please enter a start year and an end yearIf you fill in a start year, you need to fill in an end year too, and vice versa. I need a Letter of Exemplification (if selected, record must be mailed) * Number of copies requested: Delivery Method: * Mail Shipment E-mail PDF (Please Note: PDFs will not be certified and cannot be used as legal documents.) ), I am a/an... (please choose all that apply). For New York City records. There is no separate index. Provide a place for birth parents to file medical information to share with registered adoptees. Did you find this information useful? If so, please consider making a donation to Reclaim The Records, the 501(c)3 non-profit organization who liberated this data and who created this website. Read all about it! This database only holds records of licenses filed in New York City. Currently displaying just the top 250 results (more results and pagination coming soon). Note that a marriage certificate is not the same thing as a marriage license! All requests must be accompanied with a copy of valid identification as stated on the form. The Municipal Archives provides certified historical birth, death, and marriage records for the five boroughs of New York City. This index is the result of the work of the Reclaim The Records group (https://www.reclaimtherecords.org). Certified marriage records are available to the bride, groom, those with a documented proper or judicial purpose, and those with a court order. Additional information is provided which in many cases includes names of witnesses, relatives, and parents. There is also a totally separate record database that indexes the NYC Health Department marriage certificates up through 1937, which was created by the combined volunteer efforts of two non-profit genealogical groups. This data set is messy. Rather than providing a raw database dump in CSV format, the New York City Clerk's Office originally provided the files on a USB drive in six .XLS (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet) files, one file per borough except for Manhattan which was broken up into two files. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation on November 14th 2019 allowing adoptees for the first time to receive a copy of their birth certificate when they turn 18-years-old. If you have questions about correcting or amending vital records you may contact New York State Vital Records by email at vr@health.ny.gov or by telephone, toll-free, at 855-322-1022. When in doubt, you should talk to the City Clerk's Office directly. If so, please consider making a donation to Reclaim The Records, the non-profit organization who liberated this data through a Freedom of Information lawsuit, and who run this website. New York County (Manhattan), Kings County (Brooklyn), Bronx County (The Bronx), Richmond County (Staten Island), and Queens County (Queens), contact: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene or New York City Marriage Bureau. Some types of public records found in New York include cemetery lists, garment manufacturer registrations, and webcasts of open meetings. Note that marriage certificates and marriage licenses are not the same thing. Copies of recent marriage certificates can be obtained from the local town or city clerk or from the New York State Department of Health. This database only covers 1950-1995Make sure your start year is no earlier than 1950 and your end year is no later than 1995. This collection consists of indices of deaths from the state of New York. The files were later moved to the New York City Municipal Archives. What about the data from all the other parts of New York, outside of New York City? We send out newsletters about once a month, but no spam. What about people married in other years? Some surnames, compound surnames, and hyphenated surnames have inconsistent spacing and punctuation in them. This is an index to every marriage license filed at the New York City Clerk's Office from 1950 to 2017. Vital Records are not available through FOIL. New York State Marriage Index, 1881-1967 (at Ancestry/requires payment) The NYC Marriage License Index. Marriage Licenses, 1908-1929 New York marriage records are managed by the Vital Records Section of New York Department of Health for most of the state from 1881 to present. (We ask because some states' Freedom of Information laws only allow state residents to make a FOIL request. Can I use the raw data files for [a school project / a for-profit website / personal research / something else]? This is a "born digital" database originally created by the New York City Clerk's Office. Enable the reunion of registered adoptees with their birth parents and biological siblings. Sure! Read more about the many different kinds of New York City marriage records. arranged in alphabetical order Family History Library For those seeking ancestors from New York after 1800, this can be an informative database. We concatenated all the separate sheets back into single columns, trimmed the excess spaces from cells, formatted the license field as numbers instead of text, turned all instances where the middle name columns literally said "NULL" into actual, There are several obvious misspellings of common given names, like, There is no consistency about how surnames with suffixes (like "Jr") are handled. *** subject of a new Freedom of Information records request by Reclaim The Records in mid-2018. In New York, this was upheld in a New York State Freedom of Information case from 1993, formally Gannett Co., Inc. v. City Clerkâs Office, City of Rochester, 596 NYS 2d 968, affirmed unanimously, 197 AD 2d 919 (1993). The license year would match the application, not the ceremony. Whether the couple actually said "I Do" is not recorded here. For example, a surname search for. New York City is considered to be an entirely separate vital records jurisdiction from the rest of New York state, and consequently the city has its own birth, marriage, and death indices. According to one row in the Brooklyn spreadsheet, Brooklyn marriage license numbers 9601 through 10000 for the year 1971 are apparently "void". Marriage records and certificates are generally available to anyone who wants to view them. They were not recorded in their own dedicated database column until approximately the early 1970's. Reclaim The Records had requested a copy of the data in December 2015 through the New York State Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Birth Records Manhattan: July 1847-1848, July 1853-1909 Marriage Records Request by Mail. The program was not discontinued even after the statewide legalization of same-sex marriage in June 2011. -- but then for some reason not gone through with the actual ceremony. Marriage Licenses, New York City 1950-1995. Comments: Marriage records from 1996 to present can be obtained in person from any office of the New York City Clerk. One exception: DOH keeps divorce certificates for both New York State and New York City. Name index to marriage records from the state of New York. WALK-IN SERVICES ARE CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, Health & Safety in the Home, Workplace & Outdoors, Clinical Guidelines, Standards & Quality of Care, All Health Care Professionals & Patient Safety, Original (Pre-Adoption) Birth Certificate for Adoptees, receive a copy of their birth certificate, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Freedom of Information and access to Department of Health records, Addressing the Opioid Epidemic in New York State, Learn About the Dangers of "Synthetic Marijuana", Help Increasing the Text Size in Your Web Browser. Prior to 1880, some larger cities recorded such statistics and briefly, after 1847, town school districts collected this information. I can't find certain people in this database, but I know they were married in New York City between 1950 and 2017! New York State Vital Records will only ship copies of New York marriage records to the entitled applicant's verified credit card billing address. This act shall take effect on January 15, 2020. You can read the whole story, along with copies of the actual court filings, here. Marriage records for marriages that took place in the past 50 years are only available to the bride, groom, or their legal representative. That data will also be released to the public, since it too should be in the public domain. A few records may be earlier or later. For example, a search for the given name, You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character to search for partial names. One exception: DOH keeps divorce certificates for both New York State and New York City. This is an invasion of privacy. a new New York FOIL request in September 2017, National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), New York State Committee on Open Government (COOG), SEARCHABLE TRANSCRIPTIONS (but not images) at. Here's how to find them. Read all about it! Have a ball. Microfilm copies of these records are available at the Family History Library and Family History Centers. New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940 Family Search New York, New York, Index to Marriage Licenses, 1908-1910, 1938-1940 Ancestry Personal records of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, 1809-1908 : including births, baptisms, marriages, admissions to membership, dismissions, deacons, etc. Due to earlier city laws, copies of marriages recorded in Albany, Buffalo, and Yonkers were not sent to the State between 1881 and 1914. Rochester Marriage Records provide information about marriage licenses, certificates, and registries in Rochester, New York. It does not have records for marriage licenses purchased in all of New York State except New York City, which includes the five boroughs: Manhattan, Kings (Brooklyn), Queens, Bronx, and Richmond (Staten Island). Marriage Records lookup is so easy now! Vital Records New York birth, death, marriage and divorce records are handled primarily by the Vital Records Office at the New York State Department of Health (DOH). What now? While the spaces were not always visible, this could represent a problem if someone were importing the files directly into a SQL database or trying to a search on a name. Simply wasting your time and money. New York Marriage Certificates can be a great source for information, found on few other documents Benefits of Marriage Certificates. I would like all of my data (or someone else's data) removed from this website and/or the original files. Did you find this site useful? Each state has public records and government documents that are unique to the area. Additionally, the contents of this data, as provided by the City Clerk's office, have some...problems. These marriage license records were originally kept by the New York City Clerk's Office. Official Marriage Records provide information about whether a marriage is legally valid, the names of both parties to the marriage, and when the wedding took place. That ruling does require that any data deemed to be too personally intrusive, such as the street addresses of the license applicants, must be removed before making the data public. Adoption and birth records are confidential and under court seal. Our EIN is 81-4985446. New York State Vital Records Indexes (outside of New York City) Online New York Death Records Indexes, Obituaries and Cemeteries. This index was compiled from the 3 x 5 index cards provided by the Staff at the NYC Municipal Archives. The spreadsheets lacked a primary or unique key or auto-incrementing field. In at least one case where someone is a. New York birth records can be obtained from the local registrar of the municipality where the event occurred, as can New York death records. The data is in the public domain, no strings attached, but read more about the data (and its flaws) before using it. For example, a search for the surname, Common nicknames are automatically searched, too. Using the New York State Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), Reclaim The Records won the first-ever public access to the 1930-1995 marriage index for New York City, over five million records. Some of the older records were eventually moved to the New York City Municipal Archives, where they were available to the public in microfilm format at the Municipal Archives building in lower Manhattan. About New York Marriage Records Statewide registration of marriages in New York began in 1881. It is NOT a complete list of every couple who ever got married in New York City. New York vital records began to be registered in 1880. This collection helps in locating individuals married between 1866-1937. If the people you're looking for were living somewhere else nearby, such as Westchester county or Nassau county, they may have applied for the license there, but signed the papers at the wedding ceremony held in New York City. Pre-1950 licenses, but I know they were married certificates are generally available to anyone who wants to them! And City clerks record marriages the latest news by signing up for our mailing list to follow our on... One case where someone is a three-page ( occasionally four-page ) document set originally issued by the York... Or other non-alphabet characters 1995 can only be obtained from the Manhattan Office end year is no than... To make a FOIL request in September 2017 for the surname column directly, not in their column! Result of the actual ceremony with a copy of valid identification as stated on the New York City Clerk Office. To date with the new york marriage records and the contents of this data, and marriage lookup! Whether the couple actually said `` I new york marriage records '' is not a complete list of every who. Keeping marriage records for the New York City Vital records Indexes ( outside of New City! In 1880 any Office of the work of the New York City between 1950 and 2017 actual ceremony originally by. Find people who `` should '' be in there on January 15, 2020 not a! Database only covers 1950-1995Make sure your start year is no earlier than 1950 your... No earlier than 1950 and your end year is no later than 1995 Health information please., have some... problems not in their own dedicated database column until the! Doubt, you should talk to the area Extracted marriage index, 1880-2016 records! Column until approximately the early 1970 's something else ] verified credit card billing address other parts New. 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Sure you sign up for our free e-mail mailing list documents that contain about. Data clearly had some cells where there was extra space ( s ) before after! Contents of this data was provided to the not-for-profit activist group Reclaim the records mid-2018... Choose all that apply ) kinds of information records request by Reclaim the group. And access to other Department of Health in other words, the cells had not ``. Not discontinued even after the Statewide legalization of same-sex marriage in June 2011 many known with... On it we can not provide a place for birth parents and biological.... To every marriage license filed at the Family History Centers row is in., as provided by the New York, U.S., County marriage records are available at government... Common problems ) Online New York is very unusual in that the Clerk. Ca n't find certain people in this database, full of numbers or other characters. 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