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Reuben Levy Bishop (1805-1856) was my fourth great grandfather. He died in Morris County, New Jersey. I have not uncovered his parents yet.

There was another man living in Morris County also named Reuben Bishop. His records, alongside my known Reuben, were discussed in this article. (The first name is usually written as Ruben, Reuben, or Rueben.)

Modern technology has brought us Full Text Search of records. In the past, the creation of an index of a record set might only include the name of the subject of the record. Full Text Search enables a search of any word in the document.

Here's how this menu option appears at Family Search.

Drop down menu of Full Text Search at FamilySearch

There is an exception for the results. If a record set is blocked from home viewing, it is not included in the Full Text Search if performed at home.

New Jersey Probate Records is a collection at Family Search. Each county maintains its own probate records. New Jersey currently has 21 counties. Only 20 are offered in this record set. Morris County is missing.

Probate records for New Jersey at FamilySearch
Morris County was removed from this collection

I've been told that Morris County probate records, although digitized by Family Search, cannot be viewed from home because of contractual restrictions. I visited the Morris County Surrogate's Office last year to locate a will from 1782 that was not filmed. Nobody could locate the films from this time period. I asked to speak with someone who could address the issue with access through Family Search. I was told, "We want people to visit us and view the films here." (I found the skipped will at the New Jersey State Archives.)

Me at the Morris County Surrogate's Office
September 11, 2025

You can perform a Full Text Search on restricted records from a Family Search Center. There may be differences in access to records between a Center and an Affiliate Library. I am geographically near both types of facilities, but their hours are limited.

While logged into a Family Search Center computer, I searched for Reuben Bishop in Morris County. He witnessed three wills:
-John Woodruff in 1816
-Joseph Wheaton in 1824
-Josiah Goff in 1826

Reuben Bishop's signature witnessing
the mark of John Woodruff
Township of Chatham 1816

Reuben Bishop's signature witnessing
the signature of Joseph Wheaton
Township of Chatham 1824

Reuben Bishop's signature witnessing
the signature of Josiah Goff
Township of Chatham 1822

Note: these are poor quality images because these are restricted records, meaning you cannot download them. Compare these to the images of Reuben's will below, which were printed from microfilm at the Morris County Surrogate's Office years ago.

I looked into these three people. They appear to have been neighbors of Reuben in Chatham.

The Reuben who signed these documents was not my Reuben. My Reuben was born in 1805, so he was too young to begin signing in 1816. The signer was the other Reuben.

This other Reuben signed his own will on January 30, 1829. The will was proved September 21, 1829, indicating that he likely died in September 1829.

Signature of Reuben Bishop on his own will
January 30, 1929
Witnesses: William Sayre, H L Burnet, and H V ???

The family mentioned in this 1829 will were Reuben's brothers: Calvin, Luther, Miles, and Abner. No wife and no children were mentioned.

Family mentioned by Dr Bishop in his will:
brothers Calvin, Luther, Miles, and Abner

These names are not rare, but they are more unusual, especially as a group of five Bishop brothers.

A Google search produced an unsourced document purporting to be an index of death notices in Morris County newspapers.

Name indexes for Morris County newspapers are floating around the internet

The Jerseyman was digitized and is available at GenealogyBank (pay site). But the issues from September and October 1829 are missing.

Dates of The Jerseyman newspaper
available at GenealogyBank

The pertinent information from this index:

Reuben Bishop was a doctor of Bottle Hill. He died September 11, 1829 at the age of 58 [say born in the year 1771]. He was from Woodbury, CT [Connecticut].

Bottle Hill was the name of the area renamed Madison in the 1830s. Madison was a village within Chatham Township. This tracks because Reuben Bishop appeared on the tax ratables for Chatham in 1814.

1814 Tax Ratables, Chatham, Morris County, New Jersey
Reuben Bishop was taxed for a horse.

The other location mentioned in the newspaper index is Woodbury, Connecticut. Dr Reuben Bishop has a memorial page at Find A Grave for South Cemetery in Woodbury.

Memorial page for Dr Reuben Bishop died 1829
South Cemetery
Woodbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut

The gravestone transcription:

In memory of

Doct. Reuben Bishop

who died

Sept 11, 1829

in his 53 year.

A respectable physician & an honorable man.

The etching at the top of the stone appears to be a weeping willow over an urn.

A book about the descendants of John Bishop, a founder of Guilford, Connecticut, was published in 1951.¹ Dr Reuben does not seem to appear in this book, but a cluster named Miles, Calvin, and Luther does appear- and they lived in Woodbury.

A book that possibly pertains to Dr Reuben Bishop's family

In this book, we see three of the names mentioned in Reuben's will from 1829: Miles, Calvin, and Luther. Miles was the father and Calvin and Luther were sons of Miles. Below is this family arrangement linked to their memorial pages on Find A Grave. They were buried in Woodbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Miles Bishop (1739-1815) and Sarah Chapman (1737-1822) had two sons:

-Calvin Bishop (1761-1834)

-Luther Bishop (1763-1850)

It is possible that Dr Reuben Bishop, born circa 1771, was also a child of this couple. He and the other two brothers, Miles and Abner, are not mentioned in this book.

Was Dr Reuben Bishop, originally from Connecticut, related to my fourth great grandfather Reuben Levy Bishop? Why did Dr Bishop move to Morris County, New Jersey?

More research is needed.

1. Cone, William Whitney, and George Allen Root, comps., Record of the Descendants of John Bishop, One of the Founders of Guilford, Connecticut in 1639 (Nyack, N.Y.: John Guy Bishop, 1951), 22; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62282/records/4372365112 : accessed April 10, 2026).

Name Change: Bostedo to Bishop

My fourth great grandfather, Reuben Levy Bishop (1805-1856) remains a tail end in my tree. I explored possible connections to other Bishops of Morris County, New Jersey, such as William Bishop (1768-1844), with origins in Connecticut.

In a work by J Percy Crayon about Morris County families,¹ I found mention of a Bishop originally being Bostedo. A change in name could cause a tail in a tree until the older versions are uncovered.

Crayon's book about families in Morris County, New Jersey.
" . . . Bostedo, or Bishop as the name was changed . . . "

I found some documentation on this name change. Please note that changing one's name was not a formal process in this time period. We are not looking for a court proceeding or newspaper announcement of the name change.

Gideon Bostedo and Mary Beach married in Pequannock, Morris County on August 2, 1803.

Marriage record of Gideon Bostedo and Mary Beach
in Morris County, New Jersey.
August 2, 1803.
Viewable at Family Search from home. Film 4541274.

Research note: Marriages were recorded at the state level in New Jersey beginning in the year 1848. Prior to this, individual counties recorded the marriages. Indexes are found throughout Ancestry but the images are on Family Search.

Gideon and Mary had a son, Abner Bostedo, around 1817. Abner married Lavinia Landers (1816-1895) and they had children. Abner was a Civil War veteran who served in Company L, 27th Infantry. He died in 1890. His military service is reflected on his stone in the Bostedo Family Cemetery in Marcella, Rockaway Township, Morris County. (He is the only person listed in this vanished burial ground on Find A Grave.)

Abner's parents on his death certificate were Gideon V Bostedo and Mary Bostedo. Burial was at Greenville. This was the name of an area, more noted on a mine, near Marcella.

Death certificate of Abner Bostveda September 25, 1890.
Rockaway, Morris County, New Jersey.
Viewable in-person from microfilm at the New Jersey State Archives.

Then we have the person mentioned in Crayon's book, Charles Bishop (1804-1881). He married Mary Kimble (1811-1888) and they had many children. Mary's mother was Elizabeth Vanderhoof (1789-1861). (How she connects to my Vanderhoof line is unknown at this juncture.)

Charles' death certificate lists his parents as George Bishop and Mary Beach.

Death certificate of Charles Bishop July 7, 1881.
West Milford, Passaic County, New Jersey.
Viewable in-person from microfilm at the New Jersey State Archives.

Why did Charles change his surname from Bostedo to Bishop? The informant of this death certificate knew Charles' father as George, not Gideon? Why did Charles change his surname but Abner did not?

Is my fourth great grandfather, Reuben Levy Bishop, from this Bostedo family? I do not know at this time. A name change could explain why Reuben appears from seemingly nowhere.

More research is needed.

1. J. Percy Crayon, Rockaway Records of Morris County, N. J., Families (Rockaway, New Jersey: Rockaway Publishing Co., 1902), digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rockawayrecordso00cray : accessed 8 April 2026).

Philadelphia's Records to be Digitized

The City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania maintained its vital records separate from the State until around 1915. In the news is a codified agreement with Ancestry to digitize these records.¹ One benefit of this project is that potentially, any word on a document could be searched. You could, for example, find all the people buried at a particular cemetery whose records no longer survive. Or you could find all the babies delivered by a particular midwife.

I rarely have people in Philadelphia. My paternal grandfather was born there in 1915, even though the family lived in Newark, New Jersey.

I'm in favor of public and free access to all governmental records.

The issue is that these terms mean different things to different people.

In my home state of New Jersey, for example, births are available to the public if older than eighty years. Births through the year 1925 are on microfilm at the Archives in Trenton. Not through the year 1945. The Archives are not open around the clock every day. You need to physically and geographically access the collection, which makes it out of reach of most people. Alternatively, you can pay $10 for the birth certificate. This is a pay wall, as we say on the internet. Ordering thousands of records is cost-prohibitive for most people and would create a work-load unattainable by the staff. The result is that such access is not very public, in my opinion.

Current technology of the New Jersey State Archives.
Microfilm reader.
December 1, 2025.

Before the internet and digitization, the above scenario in New Jersey was maybe the best that any State could offer.

It's 2026. We can do so much more.

The technology exists to electronically preserve minute details of paper records; however, the custodians of such records usually do not own this technology. Private companies would perform the digitization process. I'm not a technology expert, but from there, the images would be read and made searchable by a program- not a person. The images and index of words would then need hosting on a website. (Remember when we all came together in 2012 and typed the 1940 census? We didn't have to do this in 2022 for the 1950 census because technological advances enabled the reading and indexing of the handwriting, including script!)

All of this costs money. Who should pay?

Ancestry can digitize the records. Ancestry is a company that needs to realize a profit to stay in business. Ancestry either owns the equipment or leases it. They pay people to perform the service, either contractors or employees. Then there are the steps in between the recording and the appearance on Ancestry's website. Hosting costs money, too. You can read about this process on Ancestry's website.

Ancestry's customers pay a subscription to access such record collections, currently hundreds per year. Seems fair, except this is a pay wall, sort of like New Jersey's $10 per certificate.

Should the government pay for some or all of these services of preservation and access? People not interested in genealogy and history might say no. But our taxpayer dollars are already spent on government services we may not agree with or use. I pay a lot for public schools and Medicare, even though I use neither. I would like certain roads paved, but I have no say in which roads are repaired or when other roads are shut down for servicing.

Another complication is ownership and future use of the digitized records. Once an electronic copy is created, it can be promulgated worldwide quickly. Ancestry would understandably not want to spend money digitizing millions of records for release on its own site, only to have another company copy them. If Ancestry owns the digitized versions of government records, it can probably do as it wishes in terms of access- charging high fees or removing access entirely. 

Asking a private entity to allow you access to its record is different from asking the government to allow you access to a government record.

If Ancestry is allowed to copy the records and sell them, why can't a private individual?

There would be a contract. We have no say in that contract and we may never see its wording. The situation with Philadelphia is that Ancestry would host, not own, the government records.

Someone please weigh in on this. My understanding is that Ancestry would own the images it created from these records. The original pieces of paper would be retained by Philadelphia. What happens to the digital images at the end of the contract?

When Ancestry hosts an image collection, you can see it if you have a subscription that covers that image collection. I'll use Newspapers dot com to demonstrate.

A hint was suggested for Gertrude Barsella (1898-1991). Some of the information is butchered because it was automatically created for fast indexing.

Hint at Ancestry linking to a newspaper on the website Newspapers dot com.
The daughter's name was Georgene Zink, not Ueot Gene Zmk.

I can view the image in the Chicago Tribune because I pay for a subscription to Newspapers dot com. After reviewing the obituary and determining that this is the same person in my tree, I can save the hint to Gertrude's profile in my tree.

Result at Newspapers dot com from hint at Ancestry.
The link, not the actual image, will be saved to the tree.

Here's the difference between hosting and owning. This image does not save to the tree. The link to the image saves to the tree. Ancestry does not own this newspaper. The obituary will not be in the Gallery under Gertrude's profile. If you have Family Tree Maker (owned by MacKiev, not Ancestry) on your computer, the obituary will not appear as an image.

Images saved to Gertrude Lutter (wife of George Barsella 1899-1971)
in Family Tree Maker (2024 version).
Her obituary does not appear here because it is saved as a link.

If you wish to retain this obituary for your files, you would need to copy it yourself as a download or a screen capture. Ancestry's contractual relationship with the owners of the Chicago Tribune may end at any time, thereby cutting off your access to this obituary.

Same idea with the records from Philadelphia. If they ever appear on or through Ancestry, you will probably want to download them to your own computer system separate from Ancestry.

We see a similar battle in New York State. The City of New York has digitized about three quarters of its older births, marriages, and deaths. You can view them and download them for free on the website of the New York City Department of Records and Information Services.

Vital records outside of New York City are in the custody of the New York State Department of Health, which will not fulfill genealogical orders. They cost $22 per certificate. (The State has staff to cash the checks but not to copy the record and mail it.) Unlike in New Jersey, you have no public access in any physical form. There is no repository to enter, view microfilm, and print your own copies.

I ordered three death certificates two years ago and another four years ago. These orders remain unfulfilled, though the checks for $22 were quickly cashed.

Last year, the governor of New York vetoed a bill that would have enabled a third party (Ancestry?) to digitize records. This year, the governor promised in her State of the State speech that she would facilitate making the records electronic.

Three neighboring states with different access to records vital to genealogical and historical research

These three states, as well as other custodians of records, are weighing continued control over information along with costs. Reclaim the Records has had to sue entities to release public records. At this point in history, we have the ability to preserve these old records and make them available to everyone. We should do this now.

1. Chelsea R. Cox, "Philly's Deal with Ancestry Could Reshape Access to Public Records," Technical.ly (https://technical.ly/civics/what-philadelphias-ancestry-deal-means-public-records: published 6 April 2026).