Niagara County Genealogy-Library

The Niagara County Genealogical Library is free and open to all.

While we do not have any paid employees, we do have an eager group of trained volunteers who will assist your research in our library.

On the shelves of the Niagara County Genealogical Society Library are many unpublished genealogies and manuscripts with limited availability to the general public. Generally they represent the research of local Western New Yorkers who have graciously donated their materials to us.

Our research library collection, on the second floor of the Niagara County Historical Society Museum, houses approximately 2000 books including, but not limited to, cemetery records, census records, genealogies, city directories, DAR books, maps and atlases as well as eleven drawers of rapidly-expanding vertical file material.

Although much of the library holdings do concern Niagara County, we also have material from many other New York counties, New England, Pennsylvania, and Ontario, Canada. These are the areas from which our early settlers came, many of them subsequently moving on to Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and even further westward, but not without leaving footprints here in Niagara County.

Patrons of our library, members and non-members, may use these records to search for their relatives. The only cost of searching is a charge for copying individual records.

Those who cannot visit our library can access the records by joining our society and using our Look-up Program.

Join today

Our library has many family manuscripts, written histories, notebooks, etc. that have been donated by Niagara County families and may not be available elsewhere.

There are at least 162 known cemeteries in Niagara County. We have tombstone readings for many of them. Some of them are extensive and some are simply small family cemeteries found on old farms. If the cemetery is known by more than one name, all names for that cemetery are listed.