Hello there I understand how much trouble you have had locating death certificates in NY. There are many wonderful town clerks and then there are the other ones. Any more before I send money , I make a phone call and ask the clerk in person . Be very friendly tell them you understand how busy they are and that you will be willing to call back in a day or two to give them time to look the person up. Most of the time the clerks need the month and year of Death to accomplish this. Almost every time the clerk will ask you to hold while they check their records . Once a clerk called me back because ,as she explained ,the info was in a very large book which was falling apart. The death was filed in 1889. If you think you may have to ask the clerk to look someone else up later ,it would not hurt to send a thank you card. These people are not getting paid all that much and a little good will never hurts. Maybe if we are nice to them, the next person will be treated well too. T! he other ones... I am nice to them too but probably not as nice as I am to the friendly ones. I will try to work on it. Maybe we can turn them around :) Another good idea is probably not to waste their time by giving them one hundred years of your family's genealogy, just give them the information that they will need to find the person and remember to thank them for their time even though this really the job they are being paid by their Town to perform I have noticed that when I am in a store being waited on by a grumpy employee and the phone rings, the clerk under goes a personality change and can't wait to please the person on the other end. Might be the best way to deal with those difficult town clerks. By the way have you looked for Kelseys in the Cannonsville , Delaware County area ? They are related to my husbands Hathaway and Seymour families somehow. Linda