Hello, Barb, Yes, we still hear, and chafe at, "the city" meaning New York, as if it is the oooony city, or "the island" with similar claim to the definition.  I can claim a derivative connection or two to "the city."  My father and his parents immigrated to New York, you might say, because they settled in Bay Ridge along with many other Norwegians.  And I lived in Manhattan when I worked for American Heritage in "the city."  In fact, I was married in that romantic wedding palace, New York's city hall. The trouble with centering on New York as the definitive place is that, in modern times like the 20th century, New York state records are created in the municipality in which they occur.  My children were born in Niskayuna, the nearby town that has the nicest maternity hospital, but we brought them all home to Schenectady. When I give talks, I use the illustration that if I died during the intermission of a Broadway musical, the death would be recorded in New York, not where I live (lived?).    Nancy Johnsen Curran http://pages.prodigy.net/nancycurran Genealogy research and photography in the capital region of New York State