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I only have my grandfathers name. I know nothing else except he married my grandmother and had my mom and 2 other children. How can I find out more information about him thru just this information? I have tried ancestry.com but I dont find any marriage certificate
See if you can get a copy of the marriage certificate in the state they were married, possibly, but not necessarily in the same county. If you know the name of the church and the state cert. isn't forthcoming, check with the church in which they were married.
I am assuming your mother and her siblings are deceased. If not, you need to find out what they remember from their childhoods.
Genealogy and geography are intimately associated. Do you know where your grandfather and grandmother were married? Do you have your mother's birth certificate? Your mother's and her siblings' birth dates can give you an approximate date for the marriage. In your grandparents' day, the wedding most often preceded the births of the children. Where your mother and siblings were born can be a hint for where to look for the family.
Most of us start with census records. Did you look for your grandfather in the census or just look for a marriage record?
The census not only tells where someone lived but ages, names of family members, and other nuggets of info that varies from census to census.
If you are willing to share the names of your grandparents and your mother and her sibs, we can very likely find him for you. You can DM me if you do not want to post it publicly.
You probably won't get a marriage cert. in NY. At least, it won't be full information. And Ancestry isn't going to have it: you need to go to the city or to Vital Records ( Albany)
NYS public records hardly ever show up on Ancestry -- I have found only census, civil war regiment lists, WWII enlistments, WWI Draft Cards, some marriage and death notices ( got lucky on those -- it was in the NY Times), baptismals (got lucky that the church posted its baptisms).
I doubt NY will ever fully digitize records.
In NY, you basically need to find death records in order to get the ones for other things: If you find a death certificate, it will (usually) list a spouse, a date of birth, place of birth etc. etc. You can work back from there. In the cities ( larger ones/NY or Buffalo) the item you get will be a photocopy of the actual death certificate or birth certificate. In NYC, marriage license will simply be printed out, the information on family, age, etc. rarely are there. I do not know about getting marriage and death and birth in smaller towns; I have been lucky -- my husband's family comes from a small town and the town clerk showed me the register ( dates were in the 1800s) but others we have gotten are from cities or churches.... donations to churches are very fruitful in getting information.
You can also ask the cemetery about info -- a person has to have a death certificate to get buried. Some cemeteries actually have all that data. Again, greasing the people with some cash helps in bigger cemeteries.
You probably won't get a marriage cert. in NY. At least, it won't be full information. And Ancestry isn't going to have it: you need to go to the city or to Vital Records ( Albany)
NYS public records hardly ever show up on Ancestry -- I have found only census, civil war regiment lists, WWII enlistments, WWI Draft Cards, some marriage and death notices ( got lucky on those -- it was in the NY Times), baptismals (got lucky that the church posted its baptisms).
I doubt NY will ever fully digitize records.
In NY, you basically need to find death records in order to get the ones for other things: If you find a death certificate, it will (usually) list a spouse, a date of birth, place of birth etc. etc. You can work back from there. In the cities ( larger ones/NY or Buffalo) the item you get will be a photocopy of the actual death certificate or birth certificate. In NYC, marriage license will simply be printed out, the information on family, age, etc. rarely are there. I do not know about getting marriage and death and birth in smaller towns; I have been lucky -- my husband's family comes from a small town and the town clerk showed me the register ( dates were in the 1800s) but others we have gotten are from cities or churches.... donations to churches are very fruitful in getting information.
You can also ask the cemetery about info -- a person has to have a death certificate to get buried. Some cemeteries actually have all that data. Again, greasing the people with some cash helps in bigger cemeteries.
Good luck.
This is very helpful. My husband is from upstate NY. I have done very little on his genealogy because we are in GA and do not get back to NY very often. it helps to know what I am up against!
This is very helpful. My husband is from upstate NY. I have done very little on his genealogy because we are in GA and do not get back to NY very often. it helps to know what I am up against!
I am in upstate NY. If you can pin down the censuses, you will have lots to work with. If you can pin down the church they went to, you generally get lots of data . Try looking up a town historical society and the town historian.
However, anything outside of a city sends "vital statistics" to Albany. So, if you know the church, or the historical society, or historian... you can often get information as well as articles from papers about marriages, births, deaths, etc.
In NYC one can only get copies of marriage certificates of your own marriage certificates or one's parents are dead, you can get your parents' marriage certificate by showing a death certificate. I don't know if it is the same in the rest of NY State.
In NYC one can only get copies of marriage certificates of your own marriage certificates or one's parents are dead, you can get your parents' marriage certificate by showing a death certificate. I don't know if it is the same in the rest of NY State.
State Archives has forms online to apply for purposes of genealogy records. So does NYC. [You can always get the info of the person's social security # from the SSDI and prove death with that if you need too.] Many records in old town halls and old historical societies have no restrictions; town and county historians have access to these if you can't go there.
However, as to NYC, my uncle took me to NYC and Brooklyn Archives in the late 1970s and we were able to get marriage certificates for his parents, birth and death for his father, a few marriage certs. for other family members. (We had no death certs. to start with.) Not all were parents or grandparents. What we did have was written information on the dates the records were created ( date of marriage, birth, death, etc.// and // who was on the record and information about them ). We spent hours poring over microfilm and paying for the record in cash and then getting the copy as we did each. perhaps it had to do with # of years as censuses do (they are opened after 70 years, I think) -- but in 1975 or so, we were getting 1935 records w/out any problems. Point being: we did the work, filled in the form, told the clerk we wanted a copy of record # XYZ and paid and got it.
My husband got a copy of his birth cert. in Buffalo; filled out a form just as we had -- no need to pore over microfilm; he knew his birthdate and location -- and was given photocopies of the entire long form; it took only an hour or so. You never get the "original" in NY State if you are born outside of cities -- I cannot get the full long form information on my birth certificate , only the form that says I was born to my parents , what day, what year. My husband got his: it has the entire ball of wax of occupations, ethnicity, race, maiden name of his mother, DOB of parents, etc. Why a difference? He was born in Buffalo and they keep their records; the town where I was born sends theirs to Albany. Same with our girls: they were born in Erie County but outside of the city of Buffalo and will never get the entire certificate data -- we just got the "certificate of birth registration" even when they were littte, as I have for myself ( think how people reacted to the obama birth cert. debacle. It is much the same in NY State: he put out the short cert.; the long form is locked away)
I made sure when the girls got married that they got the long form you fill out photocopied after the form was signed by their witnesses at church and before our priest sent it in to the state. Marriage licenses you are sent are just a registration of the marriage from the state as well. I know this as we were married in the city and could not get the long form copy from the state for our own records.... however, I have my husband's grandmother's long form as she was married in Canada at Niagara Falls. Their records are online.
Honestly, I think it is all based on the person who handles the paperwork and their attitude that day.
What is the name and what is the grandmother's name and what city did they live in? RESEARCHER
You can help me find information on my grandmother i cant find her
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