Introduction and Caveats: This history is a small book in two volumes, the second of which was never finished. There are a total of 1,168 pages in it, but since two of its pages could fit on an 8-1/2" by 11" sheet of paper, you could also say that there are 584 letter-sized pages in it. A record of the publishing history of the book is in a small biographical sketch on Stafford C. Cleveland. There are 19,098 individual names in the GEDCOM from which these pages were taken, but not all of them were related to each other. Information on the settlers of each town in the county is covered in a separate chapter, i.e., Barrington, Benton, Italy, Jerusalem, Middlesex, Milo, Potter, Starkey and Torrey. To see where these towns are located within Yates Co., New York, please see the scanned map which was published in the back of volume 1 of the history. Since the words "Town of" are repetitive, and take up space, I re­moved them from the GEDCOM file, but whenever you see one of the above names, please assume that the words "Town of" belongs in front.

This book represents a "snapshot" in time for the years between 1789 and 1872, and probably has some infor­ma­tion about most of the early settlers in Yates County, New York, but it does not cover ALL the families, since several of the chapters have lists of names of early settlers for whom S. C. Cleveland could find no further record. Please see my other sources page for suggestions on where else you may find rec­ords on your ancestors, if you do not find the names you are seeking here.

The following list is of the State abbreviations used in this record, based on the United States Postal Service abbreviations:

Since county histories in general have a well-deserved reputation for errors, and also I may have made slight trans­crip­tion errors from the History, in order to ensure accuracy in your records, you should use this data­base only for clues to further research and confirm the information on this site through other, primary sources, such as census records, pro­bate records, military records, church, land, and/or marriage records. The Yates Co., New York US GenWeb site has many records online that could be helpful, such as indices to census records and early probate records. Also, it would be a good idea to check the records for other localities mentioned in connection with your families in the History and Directory of Yates Co., New York, especially for the many families who moved out of the county. The US GenWeb site has much infor­mation, such as names and addresses for county historical societies and librar­ies in the area where you might want to search. As a reminder, please be aware that most genealogical information continues to be in books, or original records kept in the cities, counties and states where the events occurred; it is not all on the internet.

If you are new to researching your genealogy, you may want to read a short introduction to genealogical research, Searching Your Family Tree by Richard A. Pence.

Since S. C. Cleveland stated in his preface to the book that this project took him four years to compile the records and publish the book, in records where no exact date was provided in the history, such as for a date of death, for in­stance, in many places approximate dates to that effect, i.e. "before [or after] 1869-73" have been entered instead. Also you may see a ques­tion mark (?) after some towns or states given for the location of death, which means that that infor­ma­tion is based on the last known location for the individual, and may not indeed be the place where he/she died, since people often moved around several times to different states before finally settling down. Sometimes you will also see an entry, such as Elizabeth ("Betsey") Baxter, which indicates the name in parentheses is a nickname used for the same individual in a different chapter of the history. Lastly, the names of counties for towns outside of Yates Co. were found using current Postal Service information; therefore, in the late 1800s, these towns may have actually been situated in another adjoining county, since county bound­aries change from to time. Please check a genealogical refer­ence for precise information on county boundary changes.

While there are many family records that extend for four or five generations in these extracts from the History and Directory of Yates County, New York, you will find that records on many of the surnames DO NOT extend to that extent. In rare cases, I have added information from other sources, espe­cially with regard to families who were related to my father's Bunce and Kress ancestral lines, as well as distant cousins on my mother's side of the family, for which I or others have done further research, and include the surnames of Adsit, Ayers, Boyce, Bunce, DeHaven, Gabriel, Heald, Henderson, Hoagland, Huson, Ketchum, Kress, Loomis, Lord, Maring, McLoud/McLeod, Murdock, Norris, O'Brien, Ovenshire, Randolph, Raplee, Reed, Ryal, Seaman, Sheppard, Slaughter, Spicer, Starkey, Supplee, Wagener, Walling, Wilkin, and Wyman. The other sources in­clude census records, other books on Yates Co., New York, or records found on other web sites; in those instances, these additional sources have been referenced in the NOTES. Also I have added some information on several other early families that was forwarded to me by email from other Yates County researchers, since I first established this website in the sum­mer of 2002. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these other records, and each researcher should try to verify the informa­tion contained in records submitted by other researchers.

Also, sometimes a surname is spelled in more than one way in this History, for example, Haines and Haynes, so you may want to check other spellings for the surname(s) for which you are searching. These variant spellings of surnames resulted from the fact that each chapter for each town in Yates County was researched and written by a different individual and also much of the information was based on oral sources, so a surname was spelled how it sounded to the person providing the information.

The name of each and every individual, which appears in the History, does not also appear here in this genealogical data­base, unless there was a record of him or her being related to another person in Yates Co., so even though this is a fairly good record of the early families, if you are interested in the name of a specific individual, that person's name may not be here on this GEDCOM website, but may still appear in the original book in some connection, such as on a list of members of one of the early churches, or a list of early merchants in the area, so please also check my Index to the history to verify whether or not that person's name is in the book.

Lastly, to give present-day descendants an idea of what life was like for their ancestors in what is now Yates County, New York, go to the excerpts from the History or search for a familiar name in the list below this line.

Happy Hunting to all you family tree climbers!

All Surnames in Family Tree

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