Josephine C. Frost's Vital Records from the Long-Island Star and Brooklyn Evening Star, 1809-1846, is in the manuscript collection of The Brooklyn Historical Society.
About 60 years ago, Mrs. Frost, a respected genealogist, carefully abstracted all information from the marriage and death notices published in those original newspapers which are at the Society (then known as the Long Island Historical Society).* Her abstracts, in pen and ink, are on 3x5 cards which are alphabetized and take up 66 drawers in that Society.
Those newspapers' notices are not limited to events that took place in Brooklyn or elsewhere on Long Island as the titles suggest. Nor are they merely duplicates of other newspapers' notices. Many of the notices in this collection concern events that occurred elsewhere in New York State as well as in New England, New Jersey, and throughout the United States. A search of abstracted contemporary newspapers cannot be completed satisfactorily without checking this compilation.
The Brooklyn Historical Society does not permit the photocopying of any of this manuscript collection. However, the entries are brief, so that hand copying can be done quickly and easily. The original newspapers are also available on microfilm.
* Herbert F. Seversmith and Kenn Stryker Rodda, Long Island Genealogical Source Material [A Bibliography] (Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society Special Publication No. 24, 1962), p. 28, no. 310. See also Henry B. Hoff, "Marriage and Death Notices in Long Island Newspapers," The NYG&B Newsletter 2:20 21 (Summer 1991).
by B-Ann Moorhouse, CG, FGBS
Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Fall 1993
Vetted for accuracy July 2011
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