Town Vital Records Registers filed with Yates County
Because during the Colonial period the ruling Dutch did not consider
registration of vital statistics to have been a civil matter, and because
when the English took over they decided not to disturb the government
infrastructure that people were already used to, New York was far behind
the New England and other states in requiring registration.
During the middle of the 1840s legislation was passed making it mandatory
for towns to begin registering births, marriages and deaths. The first
year, 1847, all (then) eight towns in the County fulfilled this obligation,
but statewide there was apparently a great deal of resistance to this
innovation, and the regulation was repealed after the 1849 registrations
were filed.
The records were kept in handwritten books by the towns, and each year
they were copied onto large sheets of paper printed with a blank table.
These sheets were filed with the County Clerk, and survive today in
the archive. They have all been transcribed and are posted on this site.
To find a specific type of record in a specific year, use the table
below: