Genealogy

The Municipal Archives maintains historical birth, death and marriage records for the five boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island).

The collection includes: 

• Birth certificates prior to 1910. For birth records after 1909, contact the New York City Department of Health.

• Death certificates prior to 1949. For death records after 1948, contact the New York City Department of Health.

• Marriage certificates (records of marriages reported to the Health Department) prior to 1938; and

• Marriage license records (including the affidavit, license and certificate filed by the City Clerk) dated 1908 to 1949. For marriage records after 1949, contact the City Clerk.

Copies of vital records can be ordered here.

Online indexes of our vital records holdings can be searched, for free, courtesy of local genealogy groups, such as www.germangenealogygroup.com or www.italiangen.org.

The Department of Records and Information Services has been digitizing our vital records and we are working to make them available online by 2020.