NYPD Unearths Over 100 Years Of Photos Documenting NYC’s History

Buried in the basement of of police headquarters, where the New York Police Department photo unit has rooms of boxes and file cabinets. The boxes and cabinets are filled with departmental photos from the 1800s to today.

These historical photos are coming to life again as they are being digitized.
Their first set of digitized boxes consisted of 14 bankers' boxes and was donated to the municipal archive in 2019.

Continue reading

Introducing the Free New York City GEOGRAPHIC Birth Index

Introducing the free New York City GEOGRAPHIC Birth Index! This record set is brought to you by Reclaim the Records

This new database is an index to all births in New York City from circa 1880-1912 (or ca 1917 in some cases outside of Manhattan). But unlike a typical birth index arranged by surname or by date, this one is arranged by the child's place of birth, the actual exact street address! 

There are approximately 2.8 million names in here, maybe more. Remember that this is an index. Armed with this data on the index card with your ancestor's name, you can then order a copy of the actual birth certificate from the city.

Want to skip right to the records? See New York City Geographical Birth Index on Archive.Org