Address: 12 Court
Street, Auburn, NY
Phone: (315) 253-1037
The County Records
Office is tucked away on a small side street in the city of Auburn. This small
non-descript building in what was once the Cayuga County Sheriff’s office, is
tucked between the courthouse and Westminster Presbyterian Church. As it is
downtown, parking is not free, however there are many choices nearby. On street
parking is available and there is a parking lot on the other side of the street
about half a block away. These are by paid by meter. On the Loop Road there is another
lot that is beside the old Seward Mansion on South Street. Across the Loop Road
is a municipal parking garage as well. Loop Road is a circular road that was
created with urban renewal in the 1970s that circles across Genesee Street and
North and South Streets near the center of downtown. If you park in one of the
places on the Loop Road, you can either walk a block to Genesee Street and over
to Court or cut through the parking lots of Westminster Church or the YMCA next
door.
Hours are Monday
through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm with the exception of governmental holidays.
Photocopies and
printouts from the probate files are 25 cents each; those from the microfilm of
deed books are 65 cents each. I was able to browse and print the probate
records myself, but the clerk did the printout of the deed records on the day
that I was there.
The records office
contains indexes to probate records. Once you find the box number you need, you
can go to a little room off the main hallway where a computer has all the
probate files arranged in files by box number. Within that are listed the
individual names and another quick click will bring you to a digitized version
of the persons’ probate packet. You can, like most Word and pdf files, then
select either just certain pages you want to print or the entire file.
Unfortunately, you are not able to get a digitized version for yourself.
The deeds are on
microfilm and you must know the book and page number in order to find them.
Family Search has some of the indexes available and the county historian, located
next door also has the indexes available for you to look them up.
On a recent trip
there I was able to quickly find some probate files of ancestors that I wanted
to have copies of. There was one particular deed that I was interested in.
Since childhood I had heard my father tell the story of how on April 1, 1923
when he was 4 years old, his parents had bought a farm and moved from their
rented farm about a half-mile away. He remembered his excitement and arriving
at the nearly empty house with his mother and running in circles around the
large, square living room. The same living room that we were often sitting in
as he told me the story. I was able to get a copy of the deed where my
grandparents had bought that property on April 2, 1923- just a day off from his
memory.
The living room in later years |
2 comments:
Great story, Nancy -- and great information. Do all NYS counties have a records office? I'd be interested especially in Lewis, Oswego, Jefferson and Oneida counties.
Thank you, Arlie
Each county has deeds and probate records available through the court house. It varies from county to county what they call the office and whether it is housed in the same building as the courthouse or a separate building.
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