New York Times Archive (free) / question re New York BMD

[grannysrock]

Hi apologies if this has been mentioned before , but the Naw York Times Archives have been made free to view ( up to 1922 ? ) .

http://www.nytimes.com/

Now I am not American, but I did find something last night that got me rather excited.

Anyway trubble is , I need to find out deceased's father's parents to make certain of my connection to him and his ancestors . His father's name was Malcolm MacGregor , he was a distiller and was born about 1797-1798 , and must have died between 1870 and 1880 . I have in NY on the 1850, 60 and 70 censuses . From the ages of his children , he must have been there by 1827 . Now I have a MM born n 1797 who sailed to NY in 1817 ...

I did not find an obituary for the father , and when I tried to find about NY death certs , I could only find a site for 1881 onwards - can anyone suggest how I might find out his parent's names for certain ?


Sally

[LesleyB]

Hi Sally

I don't know about NY death certs, but someone is sure to, so maybe by bringing this round again you will be offered some advice by a member who does know.

Best wishes
Lesley

[grannysrock]

Thanks Lesley
I have since got a death certificate for this guy - however it didn't provide me with enough info to prove one way or another if he is my relative. A couple of family trees out there on the net are suggesting he isn't , so the search continues...

Sally

[Tracey]

Is there a way to just search the archives for a death rather than just put a name in the search box at the top and trail through 10,000 + results ?

[grannysrock]

Hi Tracey
At a certain time period the Deaths seem to have been reported under the headline "DIED" .
You can get straight to the archives search at http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?srchst=p#top
and then in if you select "advanced search" page you can put "DIED" or possibly "OBITUARY" in the headline
and the surname in the "Your Search" as well as a date from and to.

Hope this cuts down the results a bit.

Sally

[SarahND]

Hi Tracey,
Sally's right. In 19th century U.S. newspapers I have usually found deaths under the heading DIED or DEAD. More rarely DEATHS and almost never OBITUARY until more recently.

Cheers,
Sarah