Posts by Andy McCarthy

"Jump in and let your enthusiasm be your guide. Just because somebody hasn’t written about a piece of information yet doesn’t mean it isn’t out there—it’s amazing what is just waiting to be discovered."

The reference librarians at the Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History, and Genealogy regularly field questions from patrons researching Irish relatives. Here's some information to help get you started (or unstuck) doing your own genealogical investigations.

Whether you have watched the show or plan to, Mrs. America serves as a provocative springboard for historical research.

By the 1890s, NYC guidebooks reflected the self-consciousness of a supercity exposing itself to the world.

Like the population, NYC guidebooks boomed in the decade preceding the Civil War.

A guidebook is the fuel that might power a researcher’s time machine.

The Milstein Division is a treasure trove for local history researchers.

In 1890, New York City Mayor Hugh Grant believed the recent federal census undercounted the city's population. Local pressure from Tammany Hall and the potential loss of seats in Congress spurred the mayor to deploy the NYPD to conduct its own enumeration of NYC, which results tallied 200,000 more New Yorkers. Some defended the authenticity of the police census - others called it fraud.

The NYC subject clippings collection in the Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History, and Genealogy includes a small, supernatural file.

Genealogy and local history research is not often headline-making news, but resources in The New York Public Library's Milstein Division are highly relevant to controversies currently flashing big across the news ticker.

Researchers will often ask librarians in the Milstein Division about where to find historical “police records.” If a researcher is looking for an individual who was in law enforcement, The City Record might be a helpful resource.

History is often subject to an arrogant and belabored information literacy.

A death record is a legal statement of fact that provides information for purposes other than the apparent fact that the subject individual is dead.

In New York City, there are three ways to get started researching probate records.

In the years after the Revolutionary War, about five thousand immigrants arrived in the U.S. annually; in 2014, one million people obtained lawful permanent residency.

The peak season of professional horse racing breaks from the gate this Saturday at 6:24PM, as 20 thoroughbreds contend nose-to-nose down to the wire for the 142nd Kentucky Derby, at Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky.

This past month in New York City, political issues have surrounded the Painted Ladies of Times Square like googly-eyed tourists with cameras on selfie sticks. The uproar fittingly abides the municipal brouhaha over the last 100 years that has possessed the behavioral pressure cooker of Times Square. 'Twas ever thus.

The first guidebooks to New York City were written by the navigators, explorers, crewmen, trail-makers, and settlers who sailed west from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In the early American West, the lawman might be a U.S. marshal, appointed by the Attorney General, or he might be a local sheriff elected to office by the townfolk. The distinction often makes no difference in old Western movies, but is an optimum detail in the pursuit of genealogy and local history research in the Milstein Division, where reference librarians must wrangle between the local, county, state, and federal levels in order to rope in relevant resources for patron requests.