BuffaloResearch.com: Vital Records

Baptisms, marriages, and deaths from 1849-1899

This birth index is sorted by year, and then alphabetically by surname within each year. Births that occurred in Buffalo, Albany, and Yonkers are not included until about 1914, as these cities maintained their own files. The town of birth is listed, although sometimes shown as an abbreviation, as is the certificate number. Courtesy of Reclaim the Records.

Try these folks when you have questions about epidemics or other health history questions about Buffalo

Account books for the Ellicottville Office in Cattaraugus County; correspondence and records including amounts paid on principal and interest, general expenditures, notes on improvements, and other material including land contracts and deed books for Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, and Wyoming Counties. Includes records kept by purchasers of Holland Land Company holdings Nicholas Devereux and Co., Utica, N.Y. and the Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., New York City.

Concern the company's dealings with Aaron Burr

A growing database of people who were enslaved in New York State, as well as those who enslaved them.

Books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920.

WPA life histories online in full text

This court houses all wills & estate papers filed in Erie County since 1800.

A list of names

A list of names

New Yorkers who lost their lives in WWII

Lists of factories who had defense contracts during World War II and what they made.

On September 25, 1940, a full year before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8551 which Ordered Certain Units and Members of the National Guard of the United States Into the Active Military Service of the United States. This included men of the 27th Division, the New York Division. These men reported for duty less than three weeks later when they assembled at their various aromries around the state on October 15, 1940. One collection in the New York State Military Museum is a collection of index cards with the name of every soldier who was called to active duty in the fall of 1940. This collection has 28,969 cards. All names are now indexed online.

Brought to you by the National Archives

Courtesy of the National Archives

Courtesy of U.S. National Park Service

Names of 204 men buried here

Located on the south side of Aero Road, west of Youngs Road, between Transit Road and Wehrle Drive, Cheektowaga, Erie County, New York. Also known as the Creek Road / Garrison Road Cemetery.

By the National Park Service

Index of compensation paid to soldiers & veterans of the War of 1812

black & white scans of over 300 pages of handwritten notes on the soldiers admitted to the Williamsville Hospital during the War of 1812. The original register is in the collection of the U.S. National Archives. Scans were acquired and shared with us by the Cheektowaga Historical Association.

This series consists of approximately 180,000 pension and bounty land warrant application files relating to claims based on service between 1812 and 1815. The files generally contain documentation submitted in support of a claim, such as the original application form, affidavits, and statements from witnesses.

Service records are comprised of cards created from muster, pay, receipt and other rolls for men aboard various vessels attached to the Lake Erie Station during the War of 1812. The information for officers, seamen, ordinary seamen, landsmen, and boys includes name, service dates, terms of service, monthly pay, vessels upon which they served, and notes of interest.

A collection of 454 items, online free in full text at Archive.org. Includes service records of soldiers.

Written in the 1850s by Mordecai Myers, who spent time on the Niagara Frontier during the War of 1812

Lists battles & skirmishes and the resulting numbers of dead and wounded. Published in 1849 and digitized by Cornell U.

On Seneca nation participation in the war of 1812

As with nearly all early state militias, volunteers in the New York state militia during the War of 1812 provided their own arms and clothing. This database is an index of claims presented to the State of New York for payment of expenses for military clothing and equipment provided by volunteers during the war.

The first applications were based on disability or death of a soldier. Beginning in 1871, they were based on service. A veteran's pension file typically includes his rank, place of residence, age or date of birth, and time of service.