New Jersey Vital Records Online 1848-1878

This is wonderful news.

New Jersey's earliest state-level vital records are online at Ancestry!

The covered years are 1848-1878. There are no individual certificates in this time period; rather, births, marriages, and deaths were recorded in ledger books. The information varies, but can include the person's name, date of birth or age, names of parents, places of birth, marriage, and/or death, residence, and more.

Previously, these records were only available at the Archives in Trenton and, within the last few years, at a FamilySearch Center (not from your house).

The ledger books are "organized" by county, year, and event. Use the guide below to find the correct book.

Paper I copied at the Archives a long time ago

Remember to look in the correct county. Places currently in Union County were a part of Essex County until Union County was created in 1857.

Until 1857, Plainfield was in Essex County.
You need to look in records of Essex County to find what is now called Union County.
And that is how "Essex" looked. Double S.

The microfilm rolls at the Archives:

This image captured the spine of the book.
I have never seen the original books. Do they still exist?

The microfilm is viewable on the reader in the background.
Flashback to the 1960s.

Below is a page viewed at a FamilySearch Center. Alfred Dunlop (1831-1892) married Mary Bedle (1840-1927) on December 20, 1865 in Matawan, Monmouth County. He was my third great granduncle. They moved from New Jersey to Indiana and had three children, but no grandchildren.

Citation and blue markings added by author.

I don't know how Ancestry or FamilySearch comes by their images. The quality varies.

Same page at Ancestry

I didn't find all the images at Ancestry. For example, my great great grandfather, Charles Cook (died 1937) was born in Denville, Morris County on June 11, 1858. This was recorded in Book Z2, Births in Morris County, 1848-1867. I found no match in the searchable index and the book did not appear in any menu for browsing. Below is the image photographed on the microfilm reader at the Archives.

Typing added by author

The State Archives has already indexed this collection on their website. It is more precise than the index currently available at Ancestry.

Search page on the State Archive's website.
The exact URLs change over time, so Google for the current link.
Try "New Jersey State Archives Searchable Databases."

For example, a search of the State's index produces specific and accurate results for David Uhl, died October 3, 1867 in Newark. He was a baby of my third great grandparents, David Uhl (1834-1884) and Clara Patschke (1840-1914).

Ancestry's index, in contrast, omits distinguishing details, such as age, location, and date.

The image of the page in the ledger book is below. The month is written once; hence, the indexer only wrote the day. The year is inferred by the range of dates at the top of the page. In this instant, the dates are from June 1 of 1867 through June 1 of 1868. Because this event was in October, the year was 1867. All events were in Newark, but the indexer did not include location, perhaps because "place of death" was blank on each line.

Benjamin Marsh (1797-1867) was a son of my sixth great grandparents, Charles Marsh (1755-1833) and Abigail Denman or Faitoute (1756-1821). (That will be a post for another day.) Benjamin died in Newark on April 8, 1867 and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. His entry in ledger book N "Deaths in Newark City 1848-1867" is below.

The State's online index tells us exactly where to find Benjamin's entry.

Ancestry's index is wonky. I did not think this could be him, but no other entries looked like him either. His gender, age (off by 44 years), date (missing year), and residence (name of parents of someone else) were all transcribed wrong.

I would anticipate (hope?) that Ancestry will clean up their index. If linking to such a record through your family tree software, you would need to discard the erroneous information. It would be a good idea to go to the page and download it for your files, in case something happens to this collection. Yes, folks, this can happen.

Around May of 1878, the State began creating individual certificates for births, marriages, and deaths. That is why this collection is only from the start of state registration in 1848 through the middle of 1878. If your event is on the cusp, search both the ledger books and the individual certificates.

1963 New Jersey Death Certificates

Death certificates for the year 1963 are the latest addition to the collection at the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton.

(The Archives may not fulfill a remote request for this late a date. Their cut-off is in the 1940s. The State Department of Health will fulfill a request for death certificates from the 1940s through 1982 as of this writing- though the cause of death will be redacted.)

The certificates are white on the microfilm, enabling nicer snapshots with the camera on a phone.

They were filed by certificate number, not name. You can look up the number in a published index online at Ancestry or The New Jersey Death Index.

Microfilm rolls of death certificates

I looked up all my Duryeas for my ongoing surname project.

Ida Duryea and Albert Duryea both died in 1963. I have not found a record of marriage for them. They had a son named Kent in 1918 (died 1992) in Newark, New Jersey. In the 1920 census, they were living in Newark with Lucy Duryea (born Conklin), the mother of Albert.

Albert married Amelia Unitess in New York City on July 29, 1925. This was listed as the first marriage for both.

Marriage certificate of Albert Duryea and Amelia Unitess
July 29, 1925 in New York City.
His parents- Albert Duryea and Lucy Conklin.
Her parents- Felix Unitess and Barbara Wajulis.

Two weeks after marrying, Amelia gave birth to Shirley Duryea. This baby only lived a few hours. She was born and died August 14, 1925 and was buried at City Cemetery in Newark. This is a defunct cemetery with no public access and whose records have gone missing. We can view Shirley's death certificate from 1925, but not her birth certificate. The cause of death was premature birth.

Death certificate of Shirley Duryea,
born and died August 14, 1925
in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey.

In 1927, Albert and Amelia had another daughter, Lola Grace Duryea (died 1984), who lived to adulthood, married and had children.

Ida's death certificate confused me at first. Her father was listed as Meyer Duryea. I could not locate her in my tree using this information. I knew that Kent Duryea's mother was Ida Meyer, so someone mixed up the information. (Death certificates are great sources of information, except when they are not.)

Ida was buried at Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

Death certificate of Ida Marie Duryea, died August 30, 1963
in Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey.
Father was George Meyer (not Meyer Duryea).
Mother was Louisa Koch (not Catherine Cannon).

Albert was buried at Hollywood Memorial Park in Union, Union County, New Jersey.

Death certificate of Albert Duryea, died September 10, 1963
at New Jersey State Hospital
in Marlboro, Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Two More Marriage Ceremonies

Another couple had two marriage ceremonies.

Louis Kossuth Goldberger (1887-1971) and Celia Schlesinger (1887-1962) were married in New Jersey on October 31, 1910. They married again in New York City on April 9, 1911.

Any guesses why this was done? 

Marriage record for Louis Goldberger and Celia Schlesinger
October 31, 1910
Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey

Marriage Record for Louis Goldberger and Celia Schlesinger
April 9, 1911
New York City

His parents were Herman Goldberger and Rosa Balogh. Hers were Moritz Schlesinger and Mary Spitzer.

Records using the surname Goldberger stop in the 1930s. They changed their name to Dormont.

1940 United States Federal Census for Brooklyn, New York
Louis Dormont with wife, Celia; and children:
Paul, Richard, and Miriam

Research Notes:

New York City records of certain years can be searched and downloaded for free on the website of the New York City Department of Records and Information Services.

New Jersey records 1878 forward are not online, but indexes exist. The years 1920-1929 only have initials of the groom, so if you do not have the name of the bride, you may not find your person of interest in the index. The certificates are filed in the State Archives by year in alphabetical order for the years 1904 forward, so you can search year by year if you only know the groom's name.