Buffalo City Guide

Rush to settle

Waterfall of records

While many Buffalo and Erie County records aren’t online, this isn’t a brick wall for your family history research. Many records are on paper in city and county offices or on microfilm at repositories. To start, see a resource guide, lists of the Erie County clerk’s records and a list of records at the Buffalo City Clerk’s Inactive Records Center.

A must-visit repository is the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library’s (BECPL) Grosvenor Room, which houses materials for Buffalo, Erie County and Western New York. That includes thousands of local histories and genealogies, microfilmed newspapers, more than 400 scrapbooks (1930-1975) and city directories as far back as 1828. Other records you’ll use include:

Vital records: Statewide vital record-keeping in New York began in 1881, but the state health department has Buffalo records starting only in 1914. Records are closed for 75 years or if the person named is alive, though exceptions can be made if you can prove you’re a descendant.

Depending on the time period and vital event, the records you seek may be on the city or county level. The vital records access chart at BuffaloResearch.com will tell you what’s available and where to find it. Buffalo City Hall’s Vital Statistics office has birth records starting in 1878. The Erie County clerk’s office has Buffalo records from 1881 to 1913.

The Erie County clerk has marriage records for 1878 to 1935; the Buffalo city clerk has them from 1877 to the present. Divorce records begin in 1830. Some are sealed, but otherwise they follow the same privacy restrictions as marriage records. The Erie County clerk has files from 1957 to present.

At the BECPL, you’ll find the New York State Vital Records Index, which contains births and marriages from 1881 and deaths from 1880. The Western New York Genealogical Society collections at the BECPL include a Vital Index of Early WNY Families, a file of approximately 120,000 cards compiled from 75 sources of births, deaths and marriages.

Cemetery records: Find a comprehensive list of cemetery resources here. Many cemetery records are on microfilm at the BECPL.

Church records: Dating back to the early 1800s, Buffalo church records are mostly with parishes, but some are available online. BECHS has a resource listing. The library’s microfilmed records cover mostly Catholic, Episcopal and Methodist churches. The BECPL also has microfilmed church records, mostly Roman Catholic.

Buffalo is home to a large Jewish community from Germany, Russia, Polish and elsewhere. Find information about local Jewish history and resources at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Buffalo website.

Probate records: The Erie County clerk serves as clerk for the Supreme and County Court of Erie County. Wills and probate files are in the Erie County Surrogate’s Court for the 8th District. You can use a searchable index on site.

Immigration: Niagara Falls to Buffalo’s north ensures no direct water route from Europe; most immigrants arrived at New York City and traveled west to Buffalo. Some crossed the Niagara River from Canada, or arrived by water from another port. The National Archives <archives.gov> and Family History Library (FHL) have microfilmed records for about 1 million of these arrivals at Buffalo and nearby ports from 1902 to 1952.

The Erie County Clerk’s office is the best resource for naturalization documents from 1827 to 1929. Naturalizations for Buffalo (1839-1895) and Erie County (1831-1929) are on microfilm at the FHL. Order post-1906 naturalization records from the US Citizenship and Immigration Service’s genealogy site.

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