But besides our databases, there are a lot of good websites that provide New York genealogical information and records. Here are a few suggestions:

http://www.italiangen.org/

   The Italian Genealogical Group webpage contains some online indexes for naturalizations and New York City vital records.

http://germangenealogygroup.com/

   This group hosts the same naturalization and vital records indexes as the Italiangen.org. However, they have indexes for a few churches of greater New York whose congregations were significantly German.

http://www.ellisisland.org/

   After registering with this website, you can search and view, for free, the passenger lists of the ships that came through Ellis Island.

http://stevemorse.org/

   Although this is not meant to be a New York genealogy webpage, it contains research tools that can be very helpful to someone researching New York families.

http://www.jewishgen.org/jgsli/

   This genealogical society contains links and information about Jewish cemeteries on Long Island.

http://www.fultonhistory.com/fulton.html

   Over 18,269,000 full text New York newspapers are searchable on this website.

https://www.familysearch.org

   The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints collects genealogical information from all over the world. They have a substantial collection of New York records. Some of their records are now digitized and can be viewed from their webpage.

   This is certainly not a complete list in that there are more less well known yet useful and free websites for New York researchers. If you would like to suggest one, please send a comment. 

   If you are new to genealogy and are researching New York City families, you should make a point of becoming familiar with the Municipal Archives, located at 31 Chambers Street in Manhattan. The archives contain a treasure trove of records including New York City vital records, marriage licenses, directories, insurance maps, and photographs.  It is open to the public Monday-Friday.  Check their webpage for the hours: http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/about/archives.shtml

  Just last week there was some exciting news from the Municipal Archives. It announced it was putting online a gallery of over 870,000 historical images of New York City.  Unfortunately, shortly after being released, the website crashed because of too many login attempts. Because the page is down, I am unable to view it, so I am unsure of what it contains.  However, I read that it includes maps, photographs, motion pictures and audio recording–but no vital records. One item said to be in this online gallery that caught my attention is the 1980s tax photographs. These are pictures of all existing buildings in the city at that time.  These provide the opportunity, in some cases, to see where a relative lived when the building no longer exists. The 1940s tax photos are not currently included, but more records are promised to be added to this online collection.

  Hopefully, the Municipal Archives will soon have this up and running again. The address for the online gallery is: http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/misc/luna.shtml

    These ads were placed by many 19^th century Irish who lost contact with relatives and friends who had emigrated, and were trying to reconnect with them.  Because so many of those being sought had common Irish surnames, the advertisements usually gave some amount of detail of the lives of the people being sought, simply in order for them to be identifiable. This can be a goldmine for a genealogist who finds an ancestor in one of these ads.  Here is an example of one:

July 18, 1829, The Truth Teller.   

    Here are some sources to check to see if your Irish relatives were searching for one another in this country. I have included our library’s call number if we own the source.

1) “The Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements placed in the Boston Pilot.” Patchogue Medford Public Library owns several volumes of the transcribed ads. You can view an online index to these at http://infowanted.bc.edu/

2) “Voices of the Irish Immigrant: Information Wanted Ads from the Truth Teller”               R 929.1 Voices

3) “Irish Relatives and Friends: From “Information Wanted” in the Irish-American”             R 929.1 Irish

   Some editions of Ancestry.com include Irish Relatives and Friends. Unfortunately, the Library Edition does not.

National Archives                                                      www.1940census.archives.gov 

Ancestry                                                                       www.ancestry.com

Familysearch                                                              www.familysearch.org

My Heritage/World Vital Records                        www.myheritage.com/1940census

                                                                                     www.worldvitalrecords.com/1940census

Only the National Archives website is expected to have all the population schedules available on April 2, 2012. The others will start uploading the census images on April 2, but it might be months before they have the complete census uploaded.

     At the time of release, there will be no name index, so if you do not want to wait until an index becomes available, you need to know the enumeration district for the area where your ancestors lived.  If you have the 1940 addresses for your ancestors, you can figure out the enumeration districts by going to Stephen Morse’s webpage (http://www.stephenmorse.org). His website also includes links to the National Archives 1940 enumeration district maps.  If you don’t have addresses, but you know your relatives lived in New York City, the New York Public Library will have beginning April 2 at 9:00 a.m., a link to digitized 1940 telephone directories (for all five boroughs) on their website http://www.nypl.org/milstein

    There are Instructions on how to find a person in the census without a name index on our genealogy blog (March 15 post). Since the 1940 census is not yet released, examples are given using the 1930 census. Keep in mind that the National Archives interface for browsing the 1940 enumeration districts will probably be different than the Ancestry.com examples given in the instructions.  

    Good luck with finding your relatives in the 1940 census.  If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at: Familyhistory@connetquotlibrary.org.