Looking for our table of "Localities Whose Names Have Changed"? Click here.

Over time, towns are sometimes divided, joined together or renamed. The former Town of Lansingburgh, for example, is now mostly part of the City of Troy, with the rest of it now part of the Town of Schaghticoke. When a town is absorbed into another municipality, any previously existing local government ceases, and the town's formal separate identity ends; however, that town's informal identity often continues. More than a century after Lansingburgh became part of Troy in 1900, the area that now shows on Troy maps as "North Troy" is still, in the minds of many of the residents, "Lansingburgh".

In old records, you will find many places in Rensselaer County, NY referred to as villages that are not listed in the villages table but are instead listed in our table of hamlets. I confined the villages list to the present-day villages, because they still have their own local governments, their own vital-record offices and their own village historians. Places that once were villages and once had all these things but no longer are villages and no longer have governments are now on the hamlets list; to access any records they once may have held, you would write to the vital-records office of the town in which that place is located.

For a table listing the old and new names of places in Rensselaer County whose names have changed, click here.

For origins of place names in Rensselaer County, click here.