Orleans County, New York

VITAL STATISTICS - LOOK UP

The Central Library in Rochester, Monroe County, New York has a set of microfiche that list Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes by the year for New York State (outside of New York City). The indexes do NOT include births and deaths in Albany, Buffalo and Yonkers prior to 1914, or marriages in those cities prior to 1908. (Contact the local registrar of vital statistics in those cities for information about earlier records.)

NY State began keeping vital records of deaths in June 1880, births and marriages in 1881, although not all towns started keeping these records until closer to the turn of the century. The indexes only show the person's name, date of the event, place of the event and a reference number. Because of privacy restrictions, only births older than 75 years and marriages and deaths older than 50 years are open for research.

Learning the place of the event should enable you to contact the proper Town/Village Clerk to request a copy of the certificate if you so desire. I occasionally go to the Central Library in Rochester which is about an hours' drive from my home and would be willing to look for your ancestors in these NY Indexes.

Please provide me with the following:

1. - Full Name: If Marriages- send names of both bride and groom, if available.

2. -Year: These indexes are on microfiche by the YEAR. If you aren't sure of the exact year I will try to check an additional year or two for you, as time permits.  Including the actual, or suspected, month/day if available,  helps me identify the correct persons. 

3. - Event: Specify which event you are looking for.

4. - Place: Include the place you SUSPECT the event took place, if known, to help me identify the correct persons).

Please remember: the event MUST have taken place in New York State.

Births must be between 1881 and about 1930.

Marriages and deaths must be between 1880/1881 and about 1955.

To avoid your e-mail being mistaken for spam (junk) mail, please use "NYS Index Request" in your subject line.

E-mail your look-up requests to: Mary Stack


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