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USA @ 250 AND NEW YORK: DISCOVERING LOCAL STORIES

Compiled by S. Gardner. A guide to finding primary source documents that reveal local true stories about the experience and events of the Revolutionary War era in New York State communities

Genealogies & Family History Databases

1. Mine existing genealogies:

Descendants of those serving in the Revolutionary War have often done a great job of telling the stories through primary research.  Check these resources:

  • Familysearch.org (free, but you must create an account; contains many of the resources in Ancestry.com)
  • Ancestry.com (fee based, or your public library may have an in-house only account).
  • Published genealogies (in the digital book collections)
  • Search engines (search string: First name Last Name"  genealogy "family history")
  • Remember to extract all the family data from their military service records, wills, etc.
  • Digitized newspapers

1. Tax Records (Land/Personal Property)

2. Deeds

3. Wills

  • Wills of individuals can give you details like where they were likely residing when they died, family names, inventories of estates, etc.

CEMETERIES: THEIR RESTING PLACES

Identify the resting places of the veterans in your town; their story ended in your community, regardless of their place of residece during the war. Their story is yours, also.

Example:  Virtual Cemetery for Warwick NY