BROOKLYN MARRIAGE INDEX 1866
   

Civil registration of Brooklyn Marriages did NOT begin until April of 1866.
Marriages prior to that time would depend on church, newspaper, bible or census records.

HISTORY OF BROOKLYN MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES

What prompted the City of Brooklyn to begin civil marriage registration in 1866 was the passage by the 
New York State Legislature on 26 February of that year of an act which created a 
"Metropolitan Sanitary District" and established a Board of Health to oversee it. 

The district encompassed all of Kings County, including:
City of Brooklyn, 
City (and county) of New York
Westchester County 
(which at that time included what is now Bronx County and Borough), 
Jamaica, Newtown, and Flushing in Queens.

One of the provisions of the act was the requirement that vital records be recorded by the health officers.

According to an article in the Brooklyn Eagle on Friday, 2 March 1866,
"The registry' of births, deaths and marriages is one of the features of the new law.	

Before this, deaths were only recorded by the Health Officer.

Theoretically a health department certificate  exists for every Brooklyn marriages through 31 December 1937, 
when the New York City Health Department ceased to carry out this function. 

Beginning in 1908 the New York City Clerk's office in each borough also kept marriage records, and continued 
to do so after the Health Department discontinued its marriage records at the end of 1937.




 By  GROOM 

 By  BRIDE 

 By  DATE 





The (FHC) Family History Center certificates can be found on the following rolls:

Certificatess 001  -  586 (April - October 1866)    :  #1543711
Certificatess 586  -  844 (October - December 1866) :  #1543712

The latter film (##1543712) also includes :
Certificates 1 -  700 of 1867


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