Westchester County New York Genealogy and History
County seat: White Plains
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Search Free Westchester County New York Genealogy and Family History Records Online including census, cemetery, vital, military and other genealogical and historical records that can be used for your family history research.
Westchester County, New York genealogy and family history page is a place where you can come in and research your genealogy and family history. We also do our best to provide a history of the area, to provide you with an overview of the time in which your ancestors lived.
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Westchester County New York History
At the time of European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Native American inhabitants of present-day Westchester County were part of the Algonquian peoples, whose name for themselves was Lenape, meaning the people. They called the region Lenapehoking, which consisted of the area around and between the Delaware and Hudson Rivers. Several different tribes occupied the area, including The Manhattans, and the Weckquaesgeek and Siwanoy bands of the Wappinger in the south, and Tankiteke, Sintsink and Kitchawank Wappinger in the north.
The first European explorers to visit the Westchester area were Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 and Henry Hudson in 1609. Dutch settlers began arriving in the 1620s, followed by settlers from England in the 1640s. Westchester County was one of the original twelve counties of the Province of New York, created by an act of the New York General Assembly in 1683. At the time it included present-day Bronx County, and abutted then-Dutchess County to the north. By 1775, Westchester was the richest and most populous county in the colony of New York. Although the Revolutionary War devastated the county, recovery after the war was rapid. In 1788, five years after the end of the war, the county was divided into 20 towns. In 1798, the first federal census recorded a population of 24,000 for the county.
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Genealogy Research in Westchester County, New York
Westchester County Clerk
Office of the Westchester County Clerk
110 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
White Plains, NY 10601
Phone: (914) 995-3080
Website: http://www.westchesterclerk.com/
Genealogical and Historical Societies
Westchester County Genealogical Society
PO Box 518
White Plains, New York 10603
Phone: 914-941-9754