Surnames Index Page
Go to links to surnames
All Surnames in Family Trees from the county history,
History and Directory of Yates County, New York,
edited by Stafford C. Cleveland, pub­lished 1873, Penn Yan, N.Y.
with supple­mental infor­ma­tion from a few other sources

View table of scanned photos

Introduction and Caveats:  This history is a small book in two volumes, the last 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 the history.  A record of the pub­lishing history of the book is in a small biographical sketch on Stafford C. Cleveland.  There are 19,098 names of individ­uals in the GEDCOM from which these pages were generated, but not 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 deleted them from the GEDCOM file, but whenever you see one of the above names, you should assume that the words “Town of” belongs in front.

Comment:  This book represents a “snapshot” in time covering 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 the names of early settlers for whom S. C. Cleveland could find no further record other than perhaps a land or census 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 is a list of the State abbreviations used in this record, based on the United States Postal Service abbreviations:

AL = AlabamaMO = Missouri
AR = ArkansasMS = Mississippi
CA = CaliforniaNE = Nebraska
CO = ColoradoNV = Nevada
CT = ConnecticutNY = New York
DE = DelawareNC = North Carolina
GA = GeorgiaOH = Ohio
IA = IowaOR = Oregon
ID = IdahoPA = Pennsylvania
IL = IllinoisRI = Rhode Island
IN = IndianaSC = South Carolina
KS = KansasTN = Tennessee
KY = KentuckyTX = Texas
LA = LouisianaUT = Utah
MA = Massachusetts   VA = Virginia
MD = MarylandVT = Vermont
ME = MaineWA = Washington
MI = MichiganWI = Wisconsin
MN = Minnesota

Since county histories in general have a well-deserved repu­tation for errors, and I may have also made slight tran­scrip­tion errors while extracting records from the History, in order to ensure the accuracy and completeness of your rec­ords, you should use this database only for clues to further research and confirm the information on this site through other, primary sources, i.e., ones created during an ancestor’s life, such as census records, pro­bate records, military records, church, land, and/or marriage records.  The US GenWeb Yates Co., New York site has many records online that could be helpful, such as indices to census records and early probate records.  Also, it probably would be a good idea to check the records for other localities mentioned 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.

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.  Therefore, 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 truly be the place where he/she died, since people often moved around several times to different states before finally settling down for the remainder of their lives.  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 County were found using current Postal Service information, now a defunct website; 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 changes in county boundaries.

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.  These other sources include census records, other books on Yates Co., New York, or records found on other web sites; in those in­stances, the 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 these other people.

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 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 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, perhaps in connection with membership in a church, or who served in the military.

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.


All Surnames in Family Tree


This Tree contains 19,098 individuals, in 6,564 family groups.

The following are links to pages that list all the names in the history. To access the information from the GEDCOM file, click on a surname on one of the following index pages.

Surnames from Abbey to Barnes

Surnames from Barnhart to Bordwell

Surnames from Bosee to Carroll

Surnames from Carroll to Corbett

Surnames from Corbin to Depew

Surnames from Depuy to Fox

Surnames from Francis to Hair

Surnames from Haire to Hobart

Surnames from Hobbie to Kels

Surnames from Kelsey to Lindsley

Surnames from Linkletter to Millard

Surnames from Miller to Peckens

Surnames from Peckens to Ream

Surnames from Rector to Scoon

Surnames from Scott to Southwick

Surnames from Sovereign to Taylor

Surnames from Teachout to Voorhees

Surnames from Vorce to Williams

Surnames from Williamson to miscellaneous entries, people with no last names


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