Some exciting things have happened in the last 2 weeks. One of course has been the much awaited release of the 1950 U.S. Federal Census. The other came as a great surprise to me, the release of the New York City's historical vital records online.
Yes, that is right. On March 15, 2022, the City of New York released their historic vital records online, for free, searchable from home for download and print - for FREE. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/
The index to these records have been available online for a very long time. Compiled by the Italian Genealogy Group and German Genealogy Group, the index is available on their respective websites, in Ancestry.com, and through FamilySearch.org.
In the past I would rely on the FamilySearch.org index more often than not. For several reasons really. One, it was a more robust index record. It showed much more than just the name of the individual, county, and date of event. The FamilySearch index record showed the name of the individual, the county, the date of event AND often the name of the persons' parents, addresses, etc. depending on the type of record. Secondly, though, if you went to a Family History Center you could view the images of the records for free there, just like you can at home now. There I could view and print the records I wanted without traipsing into Manhattan. One could go to the New York City Municipal Archives at 30 Chambers St. in Manhattan and look at the vital records there. When I started doing that the records were on microfilm. Then they migrated them to digital images. I would scroll through microfilm there for hours though making wonderful discoveries. And I could look for free and transcribe the record by hand for free. In-person though I could also purchase a copy for a reduced price from ordering a record. I believe ordering online most recently had cost me $18.50. In-person it cost me $11, I think. Sometimes it was worth the trip but when you calculate in the cost of taking the train or driving in and parking, sometimes I'd just order the record but it was far too expensive to just guess and order something that was not for your person.
Now, vital records include birth certificates, marriage records, and death certificates. These records vary in date range based on the type of record.
Birth Certificates: 1855-1909Marriage Certificates: 1866-1937Death Certificates: 1866-1948
But don't let those start dates deceive you. Record keeping in NY did not really take hold until the 1880s. Those earlier dates reflect records that exist but it wasn't required by law to register birth, marriages, or deaths in New York State until June of 1880 for deaths and sometime in 1881 for for births and marriages.
Vital records are typically managed by the state. Except in the instance of New York City. They are the only entity in the entire country that manages their own vital records, Sure city and town clerks might also have a register of vital events that occurred in their town but the documentation is handled by the state (except for NYC).
One has to know where the event took place to know where to order the appropriate certificate from. Just because your relative lived their whole life in NY doesn't mean they couldn't have died on a road trip to New Jersey or while away on vacation in Florida.
So this has been very exciting to browse and download records from the City of New York for my dead people. Most of the documents I had already but not in digital format so I have been finding them online, downloading the records, and then converting them to jpegs and attaching them to my family tree on Ancestry.
Now the 1950 census release was not a surprise. We have been waiting for that for 72 years. In the U.S. we take a census of the population every 10 years, on the years ending in "0". However, those records are not released to the public for 72 years. The aggregate data is published early on, telling us how many people live in the country breaking it down by locations, age, sex, and race. The actually census records themselves, listing residents by name, does not come out until 72 years after the record was made. That is really a measure of identity projection for the citizenry. 72 is life expectance, although that age is really increasing in our time, but still they figure in 72 year most of the people recorded in a specific census will likely be deceased and if not, they certainly will not be living with the same family set.
I was so jazzed to look for my father in the 1950 census. He was born in 1949 so he should be in there living with his parents who were married in 1948. Well - - I can't find them.
I have found their block. I have read through every page of their enumeration district and multiple surrounding districts but there is no entry that I can find for their house; not even a note that says "no one was home." Funny as that sounds, "no one was home" is a common entry on the pages of the 1950 census.
In fact, I am offering a reward for anyone who can find my father, his parents, or his paternal grandparents in the 1950 census because I give up. I know, I know, it's only day 2 of having access to the records but I have had so much success finding others that I can't with dad no more.
The first step is to know where your people lived. Easier said then done, I know, but some of our living septuagenarians (those 70 and older, well, 72 in this case) are in these records.
If you have a potential location you can look up the Enumeration District (ED) on a map and see the ED number. My grandparents lived in Merrick, New York, which is in Nassau County. Looking at a map clearly showed their block in ED 30-338.
ED 30-338 is a 46 page document. Once in the correct ED, you can through in a surname and it might take you to the correct page of the census. That is what happened for me and finding my Drew cousins who lived across the street from my grandparents.
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