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Index to Rensselaer County Surrogate Court Records

An Index of 31,814 Rensselaer County, NY Surrogate Court Records from 1786 to 1917.

 

The information in this database was copied from a file in the Rensselaer County Historical Society, 57 Second Street, Troy New York. These records, especially those prior to 1880, will be of great interest to genealogy researchers. For each name in the on-line index there is a Surrogate Court Record folder that may contain various original source documents such as Wills, Letters of Administration, Guardianship Papers, Invoices of Property, Depositions concerning a person’s death, etc. Microfilm copies of these original records are also available at the Rensselaer County Court House. Items included in this index are:

  • NAME – Last, first, middle name or initials if any, and titles like Dr., Rev., etc.
  • FILE NUMBER – Used to locate the files at the Rensselaer County Historical Society.
  • LOCATION – Gives name of city, town or state of residence.
  • DATE – May be year of death or year of legal issue.
  • INVOICE– Indicates when there is an inventory of household goods in the record. An invoice may be in the records EVEN if this column is not checked.
  • COMMENTS – This column will have an interesting comment for each name. Some comments may show marital status (bachelor, spinster, widow, widower), while other comments may show maiden names, occupations, street residence, relationships (wife, husband, mother, father, son, daughter, etc.) and number of children. Some of the abbreviations used in the comment column are:
    • agt = agent bach = bachelor bldg = building
    • bro = brother
    • bros = brothers
    • bus = business
    • ch = child/children
    • d. = died
    • dau = daughter/daughters
    • daua = daughter/daughters
    • div = divorced
    • dvrcd = divorced
    • grdau = granddaughter
    • grneice = grandniece
    • grnephew = grandnephew
    • grson = grandson
    • guard = guardian/guardianship
    • h = house/home
    • ins = insurance
    • m = married
    • mfr = manufacturer
    • mgr = manager
    • neph = nephew
    • nr = near
    • real est = real estate
    • sis = sister
    • sis-in-law = sister in law
    • spin = spinster
    • stepdau = stepdaughter
    • wf = wife

Click HERE to go directly to the file list. Copies of these original source documents can be requested from the Rensselaer County Historical Society. RCHS has adjusted their fee structure to institute a streamlined system for handling these requests that will simplify processing, speed up response time. The $30.00 ALL INCLUSIVE FEE ($25.00 for RCHS members and TIGS paid members) now covers the cost of pulling a singular file folder from the archives, as well as photocopying ALL documents in that folder and mailing a complete package to the requester.

Click HERE to download and print a request form.

 

 

Troy Irish Genealogy Society Members Peter Reilly and Bill McGrath worked on this project. Formatting and webpage was done by Jeanne M. Keefe. Special thanks go to Kathy Sheehan of the Rensselaer County Historical Society for her assistance in making this data base available to the Troy Irish Genealogy Website. For further information on this project please contact Bill McGrath at [email protected]