About Records in Hounsfield | Vital Records Online

Searching Vital Records in Hounsfield...

          Official vital records were not mandated by New York State until 1881. Consequently, researchers must rely on alternate sources for prior years.

          Vital records for the town are kept by the Hounsfield Town Clerk—not at the Jefferson County Courthouse—and copies have been filed with the state's Dept. of Health in Albany. Sometimes the state has a more complete record than the town has, or the state has records no longer existing on the town level, so researchers should consult both sources.

          For the most part, records for residents of municipalities are held by the clerks of those settlements, not by the town clerks (for example, Sackets Harbor records are with that village's clerk, not with the Town of Hounsfield clerk).

          Clerks are required by New York State to charge $11 for certified copies of vital records, but some will give information out for free or over the phone if no certification is necessary—it varies from town to town. Clerks are restricted by law from performing genealogical research in their records.
 

Vital Records Online

Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1847-1849: collection of vital records at the town level occurred for this three-year span throughout New York State, but for unknown reasons was discontinued; this is a great resource from before reporting was state-mandated, at Jefferson County GenWeb.

Marriages, Deaths and Civil War Veteran Deaths from the 1865 State Census: reproduced with permission from Sheila Hoffman.

As a substitute for other years, don't miss the Jefferson County-wide GenConnect Boards for wills and obituaries!

>>> Find links to other resources in the Connections section.

WorldConnect Family Trees at Rootsweb—the following links are encoded to retrieve records about people:

• born in Hounsfield or in Sackets Harbor
• married in Hounsfield or in Sackets Harbor
• who died in Hounsfield or in Sackets Harbor