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The New York Herald commenced publication in May 1835 and ran almost continuously for the next 90 years. As a newspaper at the heart of the most vibrant metropolitan area in the U.S., its news features were of wide-ranging interest. Its announcements of marriages and deaths were equally so, for news about vital events in people’s lives was a highly valued commodity in the age before advanced communications.

Since 1986, genealogist and Irish immigration expert James P. Maher has been transcribing for publication the tens of thousands of marriage and death notices cited in the New York Herald. Most of the notices refer to persons who married or died in New York; however, researchers will find numerous references to marriages and deaths from other states, as well as a significant number of references to national and international personalities. Each of the four volumes is divided into two sections—one for marriages and one for deaths—furnishing the names of brides and grooms (or the late deceased) and the date of issue of the newspaper.

This fourth and final volume in Mr. Maher’s series brings the total number of notices abstracted to 52,850 marriages and 232,325 deaths. This volume also possesses a number of new or interesting features. Appended to the back of the data from the Herald are about a thousand death notices from the Fenian Irish newspaper, the Phoenix, for the period June 4, 1859, to August 10, 1861. In many cases, the death notices indicate, besides the decedent’s name and date of death, his/her age and state of death, city and county of birth, and sometimes the names of his/her survivors. Among the Herald’s death notices from states other than New York, 6,300 notices reference New Jersey, where many New Yorkers relocated during this period.

Volume I: 1835–1855 contains 14,000 marriage notices and 38,000 death notices. Volume II: 1856–1863 contains 12,900 marriage notices and 96,800 death notices. Volume III: 1864–1870 contains 15,340 marriage notices and 68,375 death notices.(Through Volume III, these records contain references to the birthplace of 15,349 individuals of Irish origin, 2,849 Englishmen, 1,113 Scots, and 833 Germans.)