> Actually BRIAN, I believe with marriages early on . . . . . .from Albany > what you will get is a copy of the ORIGINAL certificate as completed by > the > person/clergy who performed the ceremony not completed by the local > registrar. > > To the best of my knowledge the local record you will receive as a > "verified > transcript" locally is not the ORIGINAL RECORD. > > I have my grandparents marriage from 1895 in Fishkill, Dutchess County, > NY. > It is signed by the minister - this is the document that I believe would > be > given to the local registrar to record in their books and then the > original > was forwarded on to Albany. What I have from Albany is not what you will > get > today from the municipal clerk in Fishkill - you will get a "verified > transcript" from their record book. > > As far as I know it is the same for deaths - I've gotten them both ways in > the past. > > All for now - try it yourself and see. While you are certainly correct the originals are *supposed* to go to Albany. That wasn't what my comment was about. Which was partly tongue-in-cheek. But, the only death certificates I've requested from Westchester was my great-grandmother's. What I got was a non-certified photocopy of the original with my grandfather's signature on it (although it's possibly a photocopy of a photocopy, as it's just inside that technology window). Most of my Westchester needs fall outside the years of required collection. Everything, I've ever requested from Westchester has been a full copy, and not some transcription. Perhaps you have to be specific as to what you ask for. The marriage licenses I have collected all appear to be copies of originals, with signatures, and not carbon copies either. Although, I would have no issue with carbon copies. Marriages are an entirely different subject. Although, I'd still expect a lot of the local records keepers to keep the originals and make up a copy to send to Albany, even though the law was to send the original. NY bureaucrats tended that way, and some still do. Very possessive of anything they collect. ;) As a note, I'd generally request from both places, especially if I had any doubts. Also, the originals may have been written up wrong, and been corrected at the local level and never reported to the state, and vice versa. When such things happen, having both copies can be useful in other research. As for early on deaths, I wouldn't know, because they didn't record them early on, or I'd have had my gr-gr-grandmother's death record a long time ago (1870s). Lastly, the only time, I've ever gotten a transcript of a record was from Massachusetts, and I wound up ordering the original anyway (different prices) because one of the names was screwed up. But it was screwed up on the original as well. I've never bother to have it corrected. Which I could because I have a certified true copy of her birth certificate from the Mairie in France with the seal imprint and everything.