Good News: The NYS Vital Rcords Index is Coming Online!
September 21st, 2012 | Author: nygenes1
Thursday, September 20, 2012
I am writing this at the Rochester Genealogical Society (RGS) meeting in Rochester, NY where I came to hear a speaker from the New York State Archives who is presenting a program about some exciting news regarding the New York State Department of Health Vital Records Index.
I had an advance notice that there was a possible announcement coming from a lady who told me a couple of weeks ago that the state had a pilot program started to put copies of the Vital Records Index online.
This RGS meeting was announced by Dick Halsey on the NYMONROE rootsweb mailing list, that the speaker, Gail A. Fischer from the New York State Archives will talk on how they are collaborating with Archives.com to index and put online the vital records index that is available on microfiche. So naturally I just had to find out the straight scoop and off to Rochester we go.
Gail gave a full account of how the New York State Archives had partnered with Ancestry.com in 2009 with a three year contract to scan and digitize some parts of the collection of the state archives and to make it available for FREE to NYS residents. They have been doing that right along and it has been a success so the contract was recently renewed.
Some parts of the collection that are available now are; 1892, 1915 and 1925 state census, US federal census mortality schedules for New York 1850 – 1880. The 1880 census schedule of Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes and others that you will find when you log in to your free account.
Coming soon through the Ancestry partnership will be World War I Service Cards, NYS census for 1865, 1875, 1892 and 1905. There will also be Naturalization Proceedings and Probate Records.
Ms Fischer gave a lengthy accounting of many of the other types of collections of interest to genealogists at the NYS Archives.
To access your free account at Ancestry you need to log in through the State Archives website at: http://www.archives.nysed.gov/aindex.shtml – Click on “Research” on the left and then the Ancestry.com New York Guick Link. http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/research/res_ancestry.shtml
This is what you will find:
Ancestry.com New York
Several New York repositories have formed a partnership with Ancestry.com to digitize family history records and make them available on line for free. The list of records available is located in the bottom left corner of the Ancestry.com New York web page. Descriptions of the records as well as the holding organizations are provided through the links and logos on the Ancestry.com New York web page.
How do I sign-up?
Free access to Ancestry.com New York is available to New York State residents. This access requires a free Ancestry.com New York account.
To begin, enter your zip code below, and you will be taken to the Ancestry.com New York search page.
New York State Zip Code:
So go ahead and make your first search and then you will be prompted to fill out your personal information in order to acquire your Free Ancestry New York account. After signing up this one time you will not be required to do this again. If you already are a paid Ancestry member you will not have to fill out the info, it will just take you to your search information.
So the exciting news about the Vital Records Index is that a similar arrangement will be made with another company also owned by Ancestry where the Birth, Death and Marriage Index will be accessed at Archives.com. The Free login details was not provided yet and it was not entirely clear to me if it would be free or subscription based, but be patient and we will find out real soon. When I hear more, I will be sure to tell everyone here on the Upstate New York Genealogy Blog.
The index itself will give you the name of the person, the type of event, the date and location, along with an identifying certificate number. After you know this you may then order copies of the records from the Department of Health in Albany, or you may go to the city, town or village clerk where the event occurred. The Albany method still has a backlog of months, but normally you will have results at the local level in a few days.
The Rochester Genealogical Society meetings are held at 7:00 p.m. at Asbury First Methodist Church, 1050 East Avenue. http://nyrgs.org/
Posted in New York State Archives | 
Tags: Ancestry, Ancestry.com, New York, New York City, New York State Archives, Rochester, United States, Vital record
12 Responses to “Good News: The NYS Vital Rcords Index is Coming Online!”
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What about nonresidents of NYS? Can we access these records if we have a paid subscription to ancestry.com? Or are they really restricted to NYS residents? Thanks! Doris
Well, we can certainly hope that it will be! After all, Familysearch has MN records down to 2002 online right now.
[...] Read this item from the Upstate New York Genealogy Blog about interesting new advances in making New York State records available online. This is especially exciting for New York State residents, who will be able to access newly digitized records free under an arrangement between Ancestry.com and the New York State Archives. [...]
Great, so if you don’t live in New York you are still out of luck. What if you have a subscription to Ancestry.com but don’t live in New York? Can’t have access to this info is that my understanding?
I do believe that if you have the full Ancestry subscription that you certainly may access all of these currently available items. There has been some confusion about the Vital Records Indexes. They are not available yet, but coming soon to Archive.com, not Ancestry. They have a pilot part that has been digitized and they are testing now but not available to the public just yet. When they are going to be released I will get a notice and I will certainly publish the info here. Dick Hillenbrand
New York has strict laws that do not allow them to make the vital records public. We should be very thankful that someone has decided that the indexes will be OK.
Paid members of ancestry have full access as it was explained to me. The Free account is for NYS residents only. The Vital Records (BMD) Indexes are not fully ready yet but they will let me know and I will publish the release date here. They will be on Archive.com, not Ancestry.
Archive.com access is free for 7 days, then you must pay for a subscription.
The site will accept ANY valid NY zip code. That’s all it takes.
Please note that the web site for the Vital Records Indexes, when they come online, is Archives.com (plural), not Archive.com. The address without the ‘s’ takes you to a completely different site that’s in Arabic.
Thanks Kathy, I will correct it first chance. Dick
[…] Index was expected to be made available online in the future. I have written about this in a previous blog post and you will see three major articles that I have written about the NYS Vital Records at the top […]