Sign up for Genealogy Pointers »

This is the final volume in a three-volume series (see also Items (see also Items 641 and 643) of vital records drawn from early New York newspapers. This volume focuses on the interior county of Otsego and on the 300-mile strip comprising the eastern-most counties of Clinton, Essex, Saratoga, Rensselaer, Albany, Columbia, and "Old Dutchess," which, prior to 1812, included the territory of present-day Putnam County.

Records in this volume are drawn from the marriage and death columns of newspapers published before 1835 in each of the above-named counties. Bridegrooms and individuals who were the subject of death notices are listed alphabetically. Marriage officials are identified in the Appendix, while all others mentioned in the text, such as brides, parents and siblings, are listed in the index. In many instances, complete details have been abstracted--place and date of marriage or death, names of relatives, towns of residence, etc.

Like official records of a later date, the records abstracted here are "vital" in every sense of the term, the more so since vital records, as such, did not come into existence until very much later. Hence the value of this particular volume, as well as of the other two volumes in the series. The three volumes together, it should be noted, contain 30,000 vital records drawn from a total of thirty-four newspapers published in twenty-three communities scattered from one end of the state to the other!