Local History collection

The primary focus of the collection is the Medina area but there are some materials about other locales within Orleans County. If you do not live in the area, you can submit a research request using the Contact Us form or email us at info@medinalibrary.org.  Please include as much information as you have to make our search easier. Names, dates, known spelling variations are all helpful. We cannot perform searches that do not have a start and end date of no more than 6 weeks.

Here is a  downloadable flyer with some of our genealogy materials.

Available materials

A full listing of our collection can be found at the following links

• Newspapers on Microfilm
• Local History Cabinet 1
• Local History Cabinet 2 
• Local History Cabinet 3
• Local History in Reference
• Lt. John E. Butts Collection. We are proud to house materials regarding the military career of Lt. John E. Butts including citations, a scrapbook, and his medals. These items cannot be removed from the building.
• Lyndonville Enterprise, 1916-1962 on microfilm
• Church Records on Microfilm:
  Albion: Christ Episcopal, St Mary’s RC, St. Joseph
  Holley/Clarendon: First Methodist Episcopal, Disciples Methodist, St Mary’s RC, St. Paul’s Episcopal
  Lyndonville: Yates Baptist, Lyndonville Presbyterian
  Medina: St John’s Episcopal, St Mary’s RC including baptism records from 1850-1869
  Niagara Falls: Church of the Epiphany Episcopal

Our newspapers are also available online. You can find a link under the online collections and databases tab. This collection contains the following:

• Medina Daily Journal and Register, 1932- May 2014
• Medina Daily Journal, 1903-1917, 1922-1932
• Medina Register, 1882-1911
• Medina Tribune, 1861-1945

Online newspaper printing help.

“In Remembrance”
This folder of materials is a moving tribute to the soldiers from Western New York who were killed in action during the Vietnam War. The names of the 531 casualties are listed alphabetically and an obituary or press story for each soldier is included. Created by Patrick Kavanagh, who served as a medic in Vietnam, and is the Historian for Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. This painstaking project was obviously a labor of love.

Local history contacts

The Medina Historical Society, Catherine Cooper: cfcooper216@gmail.com 
The Town of Ridgeway Historian,
The Town of Shelby Historian, Alice Zacher: azacher@gmail.com
The Village of Medina Historian, Todd Bensley: tbensley@villagemedina.org
The Orleans County Historian, Catherine Cooper: Catherine.Cooper@orleanscountyny.gov

Local Online Records

Free, limited access to NYS records at Ancestry.com.
Orleans County Records.
Medina Newspapers.

Genealogy Sites & Databases

Heritage Quest (need library card)
Fold3 (need library card)
Cyndi’s List
RootsWeb
US GenWeb
World GenWeb
Family Search