USA @ 250 AND NEW YORK: DISCOVERING LOCAL STORIES

Before doing location-based searches, identify the possible place names your records may be listed under:

• Towns in New York State were standardized as administrative units in many cases started AFTER the Revolutionary War.
• Was your town/village part of a larger unit during the Revolution, i.e. "Precinct?"  For example, records indicating "Goshen" could mean in the vicinity of today's town or village of Goshen, OR part of the much larger "Precinct of Goshen", which covered several of today's towns.  A lot of towns were not formed as civil administrative units until after the war.
• County and Town borders shifted or areas were split off to form new towns. Example: Orange County included what today is Rockland County.
• Identify your place names from various publications and manuscripts as you go, especially the earliest ones, and make a chart (this can also help in establishing the earliest recorded dates for hamlets, etc.).  
  • Resources:
    • The American Gazetteer, 1797
    • A Gazetteer of the State of New York, 1812
    • Early maps
    • Deeds, wills, legal depositions, etc.
    • Newspapers (legal notices will be published in the nearest newspaper, etc.)
      • genealogybank.com ($)
      • Chronicling America: The Gazette of the United States 

Remember to check variant spellings for locations, keeping in mind many times in manuscripts, there is phonetic spelling.  

• Examples: Warwick, Warrick; Florida, Floriday; Fishkill, Fifkill (reading incorrectly the internal script or printed "S", for an F), Fish Kill.

1. COUNTIES:

Your area's published county level histories usually include some discussion of the border and identification/place name shifts

• New York County Creation Dates and Parent Counties
• Interactive County Border Map

2. PRECINCT BORDERS:

Check your county level published histories to determine which precinct your community was in; the borders are sometimes ill defined, and no "master map" or list seems to have been compiled, that we could find.

3. TOWNS:

Within counties and precincts, local place names were used-- often very early.  Check the names of unincorporated hamlets and villages that you are aware of, in the gazetteers  as well as checking Town records once yours was established.   Note place names as you find them in manuscript sources.

Timelines of Town creation: 

• Downstate New York
• Hudson Valley
• Capital District
• North Country
• Central New York
• Southern Tier
• Western New York

• Make note of known or newly identified structures or homestead lands that belonged to your community's Founding Generation; create a spreadsheet of those that are not included in your historical markers database.  Does your Town need an official "historic properties" list that protects them from destruction by development?  Check with the NYS Historic Preservation Office, they can print out a list of historic properties considered during prior land development.
• Do you have State/National Registration properties in your town relevant to the Revolution?
• Whenever a primary source record mentions a specific place, include that in  your list.
• Consult MAPS drawn during the late 18th century, especially the Erskine/Dewitt maps for your area.  Many specific houses or resources were noted by Washington's mapmakers.  Ask for a higher resolution scan so the labels are more clearly readable.  You'd be surprised what stories can be connected to them.

EXAMPLE:  Section of Erskine/Dewitt map which labels locations and resources for which the stories are now known:

Using your location names, mine digitized published works in the "Big Three", as well as free text searching.  

Sample search string:  townname "New York" Revolution?  (the question mark will search all variations of the truncated word).  

Remember to search within specific data sites--- your search engine search does not 'drill' into them.