This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/WUB.2ACI/1374.1 Message Board Post: Your chances of finding a birth record from 1851 on a particular person in NYC are very slim. Most working class people did not report births that early, records were not kept/enforced until later in the 1800's and even then, many went unreported. Your best bet is curch records, baptisim records. But, that assumes the family was involved with a church, you know what church, and the church still exsists. You might try a search on Familysearch.org, and also look in their microfilm holdings and see what years they have microfilmed for the birth indexes of NYC. You can order these films thru your local Family History center. If it was Queens County you would have to go directly to the town that the event happened in (LDS did not microfilm Queens and east) and again chances are on an event that early the town will not have records, but check churches. Good luck, Janet