New York City Vital Records

New York City is a unique place to research. The records are unique and enormous numbers of people lived and passed through the area. Many immigrants came through New York City, and immigration research is one of the most difficult kinds of research. New York City vital records play an important role in this research.

This lesson covers a few key principles as we dive deeper into these vital records. Remember as we look at these records, we are looking at birth, marriage, and death records that were created by the local department of health. These aren’t church records. Also, when we are talking about New York City, we are talking about the five boroughs of New York City: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. They originally kept their records independently, but now they are all kept by the New York City Municipal Archives.