MyHeritage just announced a major, newly indexed collection of New York City vital records from 1866 on. Read about it here! In fact, if you're researching a NYC marriage from 1908 on, you may be lucky enough to discover not just the marriage certificate but also the affidavit for license to marry--which includes extra info such as bride/groom occupation. First-hand info from our ancestors, often in their own handwriting!
My Farkas, Schwartz and Mahler families all came to the Big Apple from Eastern Europe, so I headed over to search the NYC marriage database to try to break through a brick wall in my Schwartz tree.
I never could find the maiden name of my great uncle Samuel Schwartz's second wife. I entered Sam's first and last name, indicated to "match name exactly" because this was how he spelled his name, entered his year of birth, place of birth, and the marriage place as Queens, NY. Then I clicked to search. If no decent results had been returned, I would have unclicked "match name" and tried variations. But no need in this case.
Margaret's maiden name was Lazar, and her first husband was David Simon, who died in 1940. This document shows Margaret's current address, birth place, parents' names, all in her own writing. Same for my great uncle Sam, but nothing new since I already had his details and his signature from other documents--except the license date and wedding date!
Now, thanks to MyHeritage, I'm able to flesh out Margaret's branch of the family tree to document her full name and family relationships for future generations.
Bottom line: New documents become available online all the time...different genealogy websites index differently...never give up!
This is so cool! Thanks for letting us know!
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