USA certificates

[CarolB08]

Morning all I am dealing with an US family who seem to delight in marrying more than once and have blended families, now working out which child belongs to which marriage is giving me a headache, so I wondered how easy it is to order birth certificates from the New York State, how to go about it and what the cost might be ? I want to know who belongs to who once and for all. I am talking about 1850 in Olive, Ulster County.
Many thanks
Carol

 

[Sue_3]

I have no detailed knowledge of this, but the wiki on FamilySearch might be helpful? I put Olive into the search box and selected the right one. On the page that takes you to, if you scroll down far enough there's a link to New York Genealogy - click New York where it says Links to New York-related articles. Hope this is of help.

 

[peter]

15 years ago I ordered a New York death certificate for my great uncle - who died in 1893 - but I can't now remember whether it was held by New York City or New York state (the certificate says 'City of Brooklyn'). The process was fairly painless but I felt it was rather expensive for a photocopy.

 

[Stuart]

Have you tried what I'd call the obvious thing to do? I've just put "New York State Archives" into Google to see what comes up.
This is the state archives' advice on research into BMDs. Here are a couple of quotes:

New York began statewide registration of births, marriages, and deaths ("vital records") in 1880-81, under supervision of the State and local boards of health. Compliance with the law was incomplete until 1913 or even later; therefore certificates are lacking for many events.
Several of the State's larger cities recorded vital events for varying periods of time prior to 1880; see below for more information.
The State Department of Health makes available for public use microfiche copies of older indexes to birth, marriage, and death certificates.

• The indexes cover the entire state outside of New York City and start in June 1880 (deaths) or 1881 (marriages and births).
• The New York State Archives does not hold birth, marriage, and death certificates, only indexes to them.

As that does not help a lot, next thing to try was "Ulster State Archives", then "town of Olive Archives". For the county, there is this:

Q: Do you have birth, death and marriage records?

A: Birth, death and marriage records are filed with the clerk of the Village, Town or City government where the event took place. Click here for a list of Ulster County town and village clerks. The Archives has a limited amount of birth, death and marriage records. On our Search Records page, you can search the Town Clerk Returns of Births, Deaths and Marriages Search c.(1847-1850, 1873-1884) and Marriage Record Index Search 1908-1935.

Note that the list of town clerks linked to there does not exist. Searching for town of Olive direct comes up with:

Copies of vital records from 1881 and forward for those individuals who were born, died or obtained their marriage license in the Town of Olive are on file in the Town Clerk’s office. Birth records can only be issued to the person if over the age of 18 and/or parents named in the document... For Genealogy, please refer to the second page of Genealogy form below for rules and regulations on research. There is a $10 fee for copies.

Note the separate rules for old records seen as "genealogy" and recent ones; you have to find the right rules. In this case all they offer as "genealogy" is making copies under the state-wide Health Department vital records section, and that only starts in 1881.

So far I can't see any indication that anyone holds what you want. And if they do, they may expect you to visit in person (and pay cash!) for a copy. But it must be worth phoning up to ask, especially at the local level.

 

[peter]

In England I'd be looking for baptism records. Is that something that might exist in the US?

 

[CarolB08]

Typical but thank you all for looking, it never occured to me to search in the manner you have, American genealogy is fairly new to me and very confusing. I was trying to confirm a link between me and a dna match where to put it mildly the water is muddy. As for baptisms I have no idea, I suppose it depends on the religion involved and I am pretty sure Methodists are one.
Oh well upwards and onwards.

 

[CarolB08]

I have no detailed knowledge of this, but the wiki on FamilySearch might be helpful? I put Olive into the search box and selected the right one. On the page that takes you to, if you scroll down far enough there's a link to New York Genealogy - click New York where it says Links to New York-related articles. Hope this is of help.

Thank you for this I have not tried the Wiki site before and there is lot to look at.

 

[CarolB08]

15 years ago I ordered a New York death certificate for my great uncle - who died in 1893 - but I can't now remember whether it was held by New York City or New York state (the certificate says 'City of Brooklyn'). The process was fairly painless but I felt it was rather expensive for a photocopy.

I am further back to the people I want to know about so it might not be worth proceeding further but thank you for the information.

 

[CarolB08]

Have you tried what I'd call the obvious thing to do? I've just put "New York State Archives" into Google to see what comes up.
This is the state archives' advice on research into BMDs. Here are a couple of quotes:

As that does not help a lot, next thing to try was "Ulster State Archives", then "town of Olive Archives". For the county, there is this:

Thank you Stuart this one looks really helpful