The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record is celebrating its 151st year in 2020. As the second-oldest genealogical journal in the English language, The Record has been producing invaluable scholarship for over a century and a half.
To commemorate this event, we're asking our members and the wider genealogical community to help us highlight how important this publication is to family history researchers.
If you're not familiar with our journal, the New York State Family History Research Guide and Gazetteer offers an excellent summary of The Record and its use for genealogists:
"In 1870 the NYG&B began publishing its quarterly, the NYG&B Record, the second-oldest continuously published genealogical journal in the English language.
In its thousands of pages are genealogies of New York families and transcripts and abstracts of New York records, the largest collection of reliable New York family history under one title.
The Record participated in the development of scholarly genealogy, and today it is one of the few peer-reviewed American scholarly journals in the field, a magnet attracting the best and brightest researchers and writers.
Anyone who fails to include The Record in their research, especially when working on New York families before 1900, risks missing unique and crucial information, and thus repeating old errors or creating new ones.
Even when a family is not found in The Record, reviewing its articles will help in understanding how scholarly genealogy should be written, and how New York sources can be used."
You can learn more about The Record or search the digital archives in our eLibrary.
Which Record article is most special to you?
We want everyone to tell us a little bit about your favorite Record article of all-time by filling out the short survey below.
It could be a case-study that allowed you to pick up some expert tips and break through that long-standing brick wall, or a compiled genealogy that contained crucial proof for a lineage society application.
Perhaps you found a name or event you were missing in one of the many rare record set transcriptions found in The Record. Maybe there's just a fascinating, quirky, esoteric article or piece of preserved history that you really connect with!
Whatever your reason is, please let us know the title and a little bit about the article below - we hope to round up the answers and share them in some form on our website to celebrate this amazing publication.
Submissions
We have already gotten a number of excellent submissions - read below for a list of favorite articles and each researcher's reasons.
Two Early Dutch Family Bibles: Marten Roelofse Schenck (1661-1727) and Joris Rapalje (1732-1815)
Contributed by William N. Stryker. Published in vol. 147 (2016) - click here to read the article.
I had recently joined NYG&B. There in the first issue I received was the transcription of a Bible belonging to the brother of my 7th great grandfather, Garret Roelofse Schenck (1671-1745). The transcription, illustrations, and information provided an immediacy to one of my earliest New Netherland ancestors. What an unexpected treasure. Thank you.
-Alice
A Loyalist "Journal"
Contributed by Carol [Mrs. C. Euguene] Lind. Published in vol. 105 and vol. 106 (1974, 1975) in four parts. Read part one, part two, part three, part four.
I wanted to understand why there were so many Loyalists in the Hudson valley, but maybe these days it's a good source to explore the reasoning behind the beliefs of people who seem to be on opposing sides of an issue.
-Barb
The Duncanson Wives of Four New Netherland Settlers: Glen, Teller, Powell, and Loockermans
By Gordon L. Remington. Published in vol. 128 (1997) - click here to read the article.
Thanks to information supplied in this article, it became the catalyst for research by Adrian Benjamin Burke, Anthony Hoskins, and two other financial supporters into the Livingston ancestry of the Duncanson sisters which culminated in the discovery of a descent from Scottish royalty - a relative rarity within the New Netherland community.
-John
Willem Adriaense Bennet and Some of his Descendants
Contributed by Wilson V. Ledley. Published in vol. 93, 94, 95, and 96 (1962 - 1964), in eight parts - click here to read part one.
It provided comprehensive information on the origin of my family back to 1635.
-Bruce
The Parents of Elsje Jans, Wife of Conradus Ven der Beek
By Michael Rudy. Published in vol. 150 (2019) - click here to read the article.
This and all the other ones that clear up mysteries and confusion with early settlers of New Netherland are my favorites. My maternal grandmother Elisabeth Oblenis Bogert (1906-1994) was almost entirely descended from these people, so I am always excited when I see the cover and there is this type of article. More often than not my Gramma is a descendant of the people discussed, and usually my tree has some corrections that need to be made!
-Jennifer
Early Generations of the Vanderveer Family
Contributed by Lester Dunbar Mapes. Published in vol. 38 (1937) - click here to read the article.
A wealth of information on the family, and straightening out of previous misconceptions.
-Kristin
The Bengali and English Ancestry of New York City Immigrant Thomas Chapman (1777-1862)
Published in vol. 150 (2019) - click here to read the article.
The author's use of historical context was impressive, telling the story of a man who immigrated from colonial India.
-Margaret