Wayne County, New York Genealogical Records Information

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Wayne County History and Information

Wayne County Facts

Wayne County was created in 1823 and formed from Ontario and Seneca Counties. Wayne County was named for Mad Anthony Wayne, the general in the American Revolutionary War and the County Seat is Lyons. See also Extended History for more historical details.

The Wayne County Courthouse is located at 26 Church St, Courthouse, Lyons , NY 14489; 315-946-5400 and the Official County Website is located at http://www.co.wayne.ny.us/.

Wayne County Borders Lake Ontario and Canada (North), Cayuga County (East), Seneca County (Southeast), Ontario County (Southwest), Monroe County (West) .

Wayne County Municipalities: Towns include Arcadia, Butler, Galen, Huron, Lyons, Macedon, Marion, Ontario, Palmyra, Rose, Savannah, Sodus, Walworth, Williamson, Wolcott. Villages include Clyde, Lyons, Macedon, Newark, Palmyra, Red Creek, Sodus, Sodus Point, Wolcott. Hamlets include Alloway, Alton, Angells Corners, Bear Creek, Bonni Castle, Butler Center, Desbrough Park, East Bay Park, East Palmyra, East Williamson, Evans Corner, Fairville, Fairville Station, Fort Hill, Furnace Village, Furnaceville, Gananda, Glenmark, Huddle, Huron, Hydesville, Lake Bluff, Lakeside, Lincoln, Lock Berlin, Lummisville, Macedon Center, Marbletown, Marengo, Marion, Mud Mills, Noble Corner, North Huron, North Macedon, North Rose, North Wolcott, Ontario, Ontario Center, Ontario-on-the-Lake, Owls Nest, Pilgrimport, Pultneyville, Resort, Rice Mill, Rose, Savannah, Shephards Corner, Sodus Center, South Butler, South Sodus, Sunset View, Thorntons Corner, Union Hill, Wallington, Walworth, Wayne Center, Wayneport, West Butler, West Walworth, Westbury, Williamson, Yellow Mills, York, Zurich . Town Clerks are responsible for vast amounts of local information from deeds, property transfers, and genealogical materials. Research on place and road names, the history of property transfers and much more are available through your Town Clerk. They are a tremendous resources.

Wayne County, New York History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.

There are free downloadable and printable forms to help with your research. These include U.S. Census Extraction Forms, U.K. Census Extraction Forms, Research Calendar, Ancestral Chart, Research Extract, Correspondence Record , Family Group Sheet , Source Summary Form.

Wayne County Court Records

See Also New York Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information.

Wayne County Clerk has Land & Court Records from 1823 and is located at 9 Pearl St.; P.O. Box 608, Lyons, NY 14489; Phone: (315) 946-7470, Fax: (315) 946-5978 .
The county clerk is the keeper of most civil and criminal trial court records for Supreme Court and County Court, naturalizations, marriages (1908–35), censuses (Some county clerks' offices hold duplicate copies of some of the State censuses taken periodically between 1825 and 1925 and copies of the federal census), as well as deeds and mortgages.

Land conveyances (deeds and mortgages) are recorded in the county clerks' offices or in the New York City Register's Office. Recording of deeds became mandatory statewide in 1840. Before that many deeds were not recorded.
Marriages Prior to 1784 couples intending to marry were required to obtain licenses from and file bonds with the provincial secretary, if the impending marriage was not announced in a church. These Marriage Bonds were mostly destroyed in the 1911 Capitol fire. Published abstracts are available in Names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued by the secretary of the province of New York, previous to 1784. (Albany: 1860; repr. with supplements 1984); and in New York Marriage Bonds, 1753-1783, comp. Kenneth Scott (New York: 1972).
Naturalization records are created by the Federal and State courts. State court naturalization records generally remain in custody of the county clerks. Older Federal court naturalization records have been transferred to the National Archives. Photocopies of naturalization documents and indexes for New York City for the period 1792-1906 (both Federal and State courts) are held by the National Archives--Northeast Region, 201 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014.

Wayne County Surrogate Court Clerk has Probate Records from 1823 and is located at Hall of Justice, 54 Broad St., Ste. 106, Lyons, NY 14489; phone:(315) 946-5430; fax: (315) 946-5433 .
The Surrogate's Court in each county generally has records dating back to the establishment of the county or 1787, whichever was later. Record keeping was systematized by an 1830 statute. Surrogate's Courts maintain records of wills, letters testamentary, letters of administration, orders and decrees, and appointments of guardians; and filed papers, including original wills, petitions for probate (gives date of death and lists next of kin), performance bonds, property inventories (seldom found after ca. 1900), administrator's or executor's accountings, etc. Surrogate's Courts create comprehensive indexes to records and files.

In recent decades many courts have ceased recording documents in books and substituted microfilm recording. Some courts have disposed of old property inventories, which have no continuing legal value. Most Surrogate's Court records are retained permanently because they may document title to real property or the legal status of individuals. Surrogate's Court records statewide occupy over 200,000 cubic feet, with over half a million record retrievals yearly. The court is authorized to charge substantial fees for records searches conducted by court staff. Prior to that time most estates were handled in New York City, the capital until 1797. Before 1787, some wills were recorded in the counties and occasionally in town records.

Click Here to Search New York Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records! - Researchers often overlook the importance of court records, probate records, and land records as a source of family history information.

Wayne County Historian is located at 9 Pearl Street, PO Box 131, Lyons, NY 14489 .In New York State, every municipality (town, city, village, county) must have an appointed historian. Most of the towns have their own historians as well and each can be contacted. A county historian may be appointed for each county, check for availability.

Below is a list of online resources for Wayne County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Wayne County Court Records by clicking the link below:

New York Wills, 1626-1836: This database is a collection of New York citizens' wills from 1626 to 1836 that were recorded in the office of the clerk of the court of appeals, of the county clerk of Albany and of the secretary of state.
Soundex Index to Petitions for Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906: NARA M1674. The Soundex index to naturalization petitions filed in federal, state, and local courts in New York City, including New York, Kings, Queens and Richmond counties, 1792-1906.
Index to the Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Jul 1865-Sep 1906: NARA M1164. A card index to naturalization petitions filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York from July 1865 through September 1906
Index to the Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1906-Nov 1925: NARA M1164. A card index to naturalization petitions filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York from October 1907 through November 1925.
Index to the Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1865-1957: NARA M1164. A card index to naturalization petitions filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York from November 1925 through December 1957.
Alphabetical Index to Declarations of Intention of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1917-1950: NARA M1675. Alphabetical Index to Declarations of Intention of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1917-1950
Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalization of the US District Court [and Circuit Court] for the Southern District of New York, 1824-1941: NARA M1676. Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalization of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1824-1941.
Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalizations of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, 1907-1966: NARA M1677. Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalizations of the US District Court for the Western District of New York, 1907-1966
Wayne County, New York Court Books at Amazon.com
New York Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.

Wayne County Vital Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Scattered town and precinct tax records for a few years in the 1770s and 1780s and nearly complete lists for the whole state, 1799-1804, are at the New York State Archives, although for the latter period the surviving 1804 rolls cover only delinquent taxes of nonresidents. New York City tax records are at the Municipal Archives. Some early assessment rolls have been published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, such as those for New York City, 1730, in volume 95; New Rochelle, 1767, in volume 107; and Ulster County, 1709-21, in volume 62. See also volumes 43-44 of the New-York Historical Society's Collections for New York City assessments 1695-99. A few counties such as Ontario have retained their early tax records, but most do not have them until about 1850 or even later. Many old tax lists are to be found in manuscript collections. Dutchess County is fortunate to have a long series of eighteenth century tax records. Some of the 1798 U.S. Direct Tax records survive for New York.

Below is a list of online resources for Wayne County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Wayne County Tax Records by clicking the link below:

Wayne County, New York Tax Books at Amazon.com

Wayne County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other New York Genealogical Addresses

The Repositories in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be more generalized and over look the smaller details that local societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy section and may have some resources that are not located at archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All these places are vitally important to the family genealogist and must not be passed over.

Below is a list of online resources for Wayne County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Wayne County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:

Office of the County Historian, PO Box 131, 9 Pearl St., Lyons, NY 14489; 315-946-5470
Municipal Historians: Includes all Town and Village Historians
Wayne County Historical Society, Lyons 14489
West Wayne Genealogical Society, 411 Canal Drive East, Macedon 14502-9113
Local New York Researchers, Find a local researcher or become a local researcher.
New York State Archives and Records Administration, The State Education Department, Cultural Education Center, 11th Floor; Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230; (518) 474-8955, [EMAIL]
Referred to here as the New York State Archives for brevity, it was the last such archives to be established in the United States. It houses land and court records, military and tax records, New York state vital records indexes, pre-settlement survey maps, and legislative records.
New York State Library, Cultural Education Center, 7th Floor, Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230; The state library has a large collection of published and manuscript material on New York, including genealogies and local histories, federal and state censuses, city directories, and periodicals. It is also one of the two depositories for the State of New York DAR collection.
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 122 East 58^th Street, New York, New York 10022-1939; 212-755-8532, Fax: 212-754-4218; A private society, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society publishes the NYG&B Newsletter and a quarterly, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Its library holds much New York State and related material, both for New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. For New York there are censuses, federal and state; a large manuscript collection of church, cemetery, Bible, and other records; and an extensive amount of published family and local histories. Nonmembers can use the library for a small fee, but only members have access to the stacks, manuscripts, and microforms. The library provides a list of area researchers.
New York State Historical Association, West Lake Road, P.O. Box 800, Cooperstown, New York, 13326-0800
National Archives--Northeast Region, 201 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014.
New York Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
New York Genealogical Society Books at Amazon.com

Wayne County Church & Cemeteries

Click Here to Search New York Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.

There are many churches and cemeteries in Wayne County. Some transcriptions are online. A great site is the Wayne County Tombstone Transcription Project.

Many church records, mostly early and particularly for Long Island, New York City, and the Hudson River Valley, have been published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record with a large collection of unpublished records maintained by the New York. Particularly useful as vital records substitutes among the surviving New York church records are those of the Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, and Quaker groups.

The largest number of New York cemetery records (the bulk of which are actually transcriptions of cemetery marker inscriptions) is found in the multivolume collection of the Daughters of the American Revolution in the State of New York, Church, and Town Records, located at the New York State Library, the New York Public Library, and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C. Scattered volumes are found in other libraries including many local libraries in the area in which a particular cemetery is located.

Below is a list of online resources for Wayne County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Wayne County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Click Here to Search New York Family Tree Records! - The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Wayne County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Wayne County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

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Genealogical Document Search and Retrieval Service
Wayne County, New York Family Books at Amazon.com

County History

Brief History of Wayne County, New York

Wayne County, originally included in lands of Ontario and Seneca Counties, became a separate county on April 11, 1823. The county’s history actually begins long before 1823.

Little has been written about the early Indians who lived in and around Wayne County. When the first white pioneers arrived in 1789, it does not appear that there were any major Indian settlements in this area. Rather, the Indian made hunting and fishing trips into this region where bear, wolf, deer and a wide variety of fish could be found in large quantities. Sodus Bay was a favorite fishing spot and a well-worn trail extended from its shores to the head of Cayuga Lake, where the Indians had permanent homes.

Artifacts found throughout the county, and especially in the town of Savannah, indicate that Indians, at one time, did have permanent or seasonal camps in the area. In fact, as far back as 10,000 years ago, Indian hunters, following the retreating glacier, moved into the area to hunt such animals as mastodon and moose elk. Once agriculture was introduced into the Indian Society, permanent settlement moved to the south of Wayne County, into the area around the Finger Lakes.

The Indians had an appreciation of their natural surroundings, which has become part of our heritage in the names which they used: for example, Sodus, a shortened form of the Cayuga work meaning "silvery waters" and Ontario, meaning "pleasant lake".

The French fur traders and Jesuit missionaries also made occasional visits to this area. On the banks of the Clyde River, near the site of the present village of Clyde, a blockhouse once stood. The legends surrounding it are many. The most authentic seems to be the one recounted by an early resident who places its construction at about the time of the French and Indian War. It was built, according to his story, for the protection of the trappers and missionaries. It was two stories high with the second story projecting beyond the first on all four sides. There is no record that the blockhouse actually figured in combat. During the Revolutionary War, the Tories had possession of it and used it for a station for goods smuggled in from Canada by way of Sodus Bay. A group of renegades, trap-robbers and other criminals settled near the fort and carried on a lively and profitable smuggling business until it was broken up by the government near the end of the war. Nothing more was heard of this group, and it was not until 1789 that the first permanent settlement was established in the area.

In May of 1789, two bateaux (flat-bottomed boats) carrying Nicholas and William Stansell, John Featherly and their families--12 persons in all, landed on the banks of the Clyde River just south of the present village of Lyons and became our "first" settlers. That same year, pioneers took up land in Palmyra and Macedon. A steady stream of newcomers followed, and by the early 1800’s, there were settlements in almost every town of the county.

The early settlers of Wayne County found land covered with thick forests principally of hard woods, such as oak, hickory, beech, birch and maple, with some soft woods on the low lands. The cutting away of these forests was a tremendous task, but it gave the pioneers a source of cash income at a time when there was almost no other, through the manufacture of potash from the ashes of the burned logs. An ashery was one of the first business enterprises mentioned in the history of almost every settlement. Although the tillable land has long since been stripped of its forests, there is still a fair amount of logging done in the county.

The land of the county is level or slightly rolling, except for the drumlins, long ridges of hills extending north and south, created by the receding ice sheet. It has a general slope northward toward Lake Ontario. From the lake southward, there is a fairly uniform rise to what is known as "the Ridge". This is an elevation extending across Wayne County from east to west and continuing on even beyond the state boundary. The elevation of the ridge, from 150 to 188 feet; its situation with reference to the lake; and the soil had lead geologists to the conclusion that it constituted the southern shore of Lake Ontario in the far distant past.

The influence of the lake on the climate of the county is reflected in the concentration of orchards in the northern section. As a result, Wayne County ranks high in the production of sour cherries, apples and pears. The agriculture of the county is greatly diversified with the rich muck lands contribution to the production of vegetables.

Some of Wayne County’s early arrivals were veterans of the Revolution who came to take up claims in the Military Tract. This fact, along with the story of the blockhouse, furnished Wayne County with its major link to the War for Independence, although a segment of the troops engaged in the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign passed through, or very near to, the southern edge of the county.

It is sometimes difficult to realize that in the not so distant past the greater part of New York State was an Indian country. As late as 1755 an Iroquois chief said to Sir William Johnson, of that territory which had been his by right of possession for centuries: "The land that reaches down from Oswego to Schanandowana (Wyoming), we beg not to be settled by Christians." The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1786) recognized the justice of the Indian claims to this region as their property, and provision was made for the purchase of it by the white invading settler. In the compromise of the conflicting claims of New York and Massachusetts to districts now in New York, a line was drawn from Pennsylvania to, and through, the present Wayne County, west of which, Massachusetts had the "preemption right," or the first right to buy land from the Indians, the rightful owners.

Wayne County was evidently the joint home of the Senecas and Cayugas, who used it more for their hunting and fishing grounds than for settlement. There is no evidence that the Jesuits ever had a mission in the County; it is probable they did not. Neither have we any record of the French wanderers making any attempt to establish a permanent camp within the district, although Sodus Bay must have been a desirable harbor for them on their lake journeys to Niagara and the points west. This region was fortunate in escaping most of the horrors of the early wars. The Six Nations broke their agreement to remain neutral in the Revolution, but the result was, as far as Wayne was concerned, to introduce it to the whites. Sullivan's raid, the precursor of Sherman's "March to the Sea," laid waste the towns of the Iroquois from Elmira, through the Genesee Valley, almost to Lake Ontario. The returning soldiers of this army "relieved the dark picture of their warfare with descriptions of the rolling uplands and rich valleys-the Canaan they had seen." Four years later the war closed and the great hegira to the "west" was on. One of the first great land purchases in the County, the Phelps-Gorham, came about through the tales of Major Adam Hoops, one of Sullivan's aides. These men bought from the Indians 2,600,000 acres for $5,000, and an annual payment of $500. Included in this was a "mill yard" in the section farther west than the Indians cared to sell, but which as a favor they threw in with the rest. The mill yard was a strip of land twelve miles wide, extending from Avon to the mouth of the river a mere 200,000 acres!

To attempt to trace the various lines, grants and reserves laid down or sold at the pre-Revolutionary period would take too many pages. The old "Preemption line," the boundary fixed by the States of Massachusetts and New York, beyond which the inhabitants of the former-mentioned State had the first right of purchase from the Indians, almost divided the present County in halves, and was located three miles west of Sodus Bay. The new survey, made necessary by the fraudulent or careless work of the original surveyors, fixed this line as running through Sodus Bay on the north from Seneca Lake. The correctness of this line was not questioned, but it left a section known as the "Gore" in early documents which added to the difficulty in assured possession of those lands purchased before the opening of the nineteenth century.

The first settlers of the region which is now Wayne County located along the Ganargwa River, which was natural, since it was not only a fine stream for water power, but was surrounded by very fertile lands. Moreover, the stream was the easiest highway from the main road, leading west. The first westward road was one coming from near Utica to Geneva, and, with the building of the Cayuga Bridge, in 1800, was the road chosen by nearly all of the westward travelers. This highway left the Wayne region somewhat isolated and the person wanting to locate here came by way of the set of streams and lakes Iying to the north of this road. But it was only a few years after, 1800, that the "New Road" came west, passing through the County, opening up the fertile Ganargwa lands.

The first permanent settlement was started by John Swift and Col. John Jenkins, March, 1789, about two miles from Palmyra. In May of this same year a small colony made up of the Stansell and Leatherby families located at the junction of Ganargwa and the Canandaigua Outlet, calling the place Lyons, from a fancied likeness of the place to the spot on the Rhone, where that great city had its site. Williamson, the owner of much of the Gore, had selected Sodus Bay as the point for a future commercial center, on the idea that the lake and the St. Lawrence would be the outlet for the products of all this north country. In 1794 he had roads cut from Palmyra to Phelpstown, and made bold statements concerning the town he was to build and the wonderful prospects it had. The town was surveyed by Joseph Colt in lots of a quarter acre; a hotel was built; $20,000 dollars was expended in the first two years in improvements; Sodus quickly passed from the doubtful class to the head of the towns of the region.

The British still retained their forts on the northern border after the Revolution and threatened an invasion of the territory which included the County. The Indians were also getting obstreperous, and the pioneers were somewhat worried. But Mad Anthony Wayne gave the tribes a thorough whipping and the British moved back into Canada in 1799, so that with the horizon cleared the work of settling the region went merrily on.

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