Old Town Records
Before the creation of Greater New York on January 1, 1898, the counties bordering New York County —Kings, Queens, Richmond, and Westchester Counties—were comprised of municipalities (villages, towns, cities), some of which date back to the early days of Dutch and English colonization of Lenapehoking (Lënapehòkink in Unami), the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. This collection includes records created and/or maintained by these municipalities before they were dissolved, annexed, or consolidated into what is now modern-day New York City. This vast collection, commonly known as the “Old Town records,” contains administrative records, court records, financial records, land records, voting records, tax records, military records, records documenting enslaved people, and municipal infrastructure records, among other record types, circa 1630-1943.
