Marriage Notices Appearing in Troy Newspapers

1797-1860

Introduction & Index

An index to 6,177 marriage notices covering 12,354 names that were published in five different Troy, New York newspapers from 1797 to 1860 was created by staff at the Troy Public Library in 1938 through 1939. A two Volume Set of these marriage records is in the Troy Room at the Troy Library.

The Troy Irish Genealogy Society was allowed to scan these books so the records could be made available on-line for genealogy researchers. A one Volume set of death records from the same five newspapers and for the same time period was also indexed. Those death records are also on the TIGS website.

With these 63 years of marriage and death records you will be able to follow many family names and the major events in their lives, with the marriages, followed by deaths and in many cases a subsequent remarriage.

This indexing project was inspired by the previous work down by the Philip Schuyler Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in 1935 under a Works Project Administration grant. Transcriptions from that project, The Troy Newspaper Project, can also be found on the TIGS website www.troyirish.com

The five different Troy newspapers were:

1 – Troy Budget
2 – Troy Gazette
3 – Troy Sentinel
4 – Troy Times (See Note)
5 – Troy Whig

(* Note: There were no records for the Troy Times in the index but there were some records for the Troy Post.)

The Troy Budget, being the oldest Troy newspaper covering the longest period of years, was selected as the newspaper to be indexed. In instances where the newspaper records were incomplete, other local newspapers were substituted for the particular years missing.

Under “Resources” on the TIGS website, www.troyirish.com you will also find an informative article, “Newspapering in Rensselaer County”, which identifies which of the above newspapers are available, on microfilm or hard copy, at the Troy Library.

These historical records are extremely important to genealogy researchers as the bulk of the records predate New York’s 1880 law that required reporting of marriages. Outside of the marriage location itself, church, justice of the peace, etc., you will not find these records anywhere else.

Most entries show the name of the bride and groom, the residence address for both, date of marriage, names of newspapers that reported the marriage along with the newspaper date, page and column number where you will find the notice in the appropriate newspaper. It is important to note that the residence for the bride and groom is not just Troy, but may cover all area of New York State, other States and even foreign countries.

While 5,225 of the names showed no indication of residence, those records where the residence was reported are of interest beyond the Troy, New York area.

The listed residence for 6,055 New York State individuals was in 446 individual cities, towns and villages throughout New York State. Considering the dates of these records, some of these named cities, towns and village locations may have since changed or no longer exist.

In addition, the residence of either the bride or groom for 984 individuals was identified as being in 370 different cities, towns and villages in 31 states other than New York. The residence of another 68 individuals was listed in 11 foreign countries.