Buffalo History Research

Buffalo Research

The gateway to researching the rich history of Buffalo's Ancestors, Buildings, Companies, & More!

This site is the ultimate research tool for anyone interested in looking back into time to discover the rich history of Buffalo, NY. The "ABCs" of Buffalo are all here for at your disposal. Browse or search your heart out Buffalo!

City Directories

Social, Business, Fraternal, and Charity Directores from Buffalo, Erie County, and Westrern New York.

Browse the Collection

Obituaries & Death Notices

A good obituary can be a genealogical gold mine, but finding one isn't always simple or straightforward. You will have the best results if you know the month, day, year, and place that the person died. Links have been added wherever possible to assist the out-of-town researcher, but local newspapers published before the invention of computerized typesetting, with some random exceptions, are not online. They are on microfilm.

Browse Now!
The Top Ten

[most indespensible]

books about Buffalo
City of Light Belfer, Lauren
New York: Dial Press, ©1999
Power Failure: Politics, Patronage, and the Economic Future of Buffalo, New York Dillaway, Diana
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, ©2006
High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York Goldman, Mark
Albany, NY: State University of New York, ©1983
The Last Fine Time Klinkenborg, Verlyn
New York: Alfred Knopf, ©1991
Strangers in the Land of Paradise: The Creation of an African-American Community, Buffalo, New York, 1900-1940 Williams, Lillian Serece
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, ©1999
Buffalo Architecture: A Guide Kowsky, Frank et al
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ©1981
Triptychs: Buffalo's Lower West Side Revisited Rogovin, Milto
New York: W.W. Norton, ©1994
Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo Severance, Frank H.
Buffalo, NY: Buffalo Historical Society, ©1912
History of Buffalo and Erie County Smith, H. Perry
Syracuse, NY: D. Mason, ©1884
America's Crossroads: Buffalo's Canal Street/Dante Place Vogel, Michael et al
Buffalo, NY: Heritage Press, Canisius College, ©1993, reprinted 2010
Buffalo Full Text

Full-text nonfiction books (monographs) and periodicals with a Buffalo, NY connection. While most of the works have to do with Buffalo or Buffalonians, we included a few about Erie County, the Niagara Frontier, and Western New York in general. We omitted works that focus solely on the Niagara Falls area. We leave that job for a Falls enthusiast.

Check Them Out!
Maps

Buffalo, Erie County, and Western New York

Historic Buffalo Maps | Contemporary and Undated Buffalo Maps | Historic Erie County Maps
Historic Western New York and Niagara Frontier Maps | Offline Maps

Explore Now