(NOTE: This is taken from Outline of New York Family History Center.)
The following were important events in New York. These changes could and sometimes did effect family movements.
1609 Henry Hudson Established Holland’s Claim to the New York Area. He sailed under the Dutch.
1624-26 The Dutch West India Company established the colony of New Netherlands. It settlements were at New Amsterdam(lower tip of Manhattan) and Fort Orange, the present of site of Albany.
1629 The Dutch introduced the patroonship (manorial System) which established a landholding aristocracy in the Hudson Valley.
1664 New Netherlands surrendered to the English who separated it into the colonies of New York and New Jersey
1673-74 The Dutch briefly reconquered New York.
1683 The Twelve original counties are formed ( Albany, Cornwall, Dukes, Dutchess, Kings, New York ,Queens , Orange, Richmond, Suffolk, Ulster and Westchester.)
1731 The boundary between New York and Connecticut was settled.
1769 After long conflicts, the present border with New Jersey was agreed upon. The line was surveyed and marked in 1774
1773 The New York-Massachusetts boundary dispute was finally resolved.
1776 New York declared independence from Britain and Vermont declared its independence from New York. At the end of the Rev. War. 1783 The British evacuated Loyalists to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the British West Indies.
1786 The Hartford Treaty gave Massachusetts the title to the land in western New York west of the “Pre-emption line ( line running north and south between Seneca and Keuka Lakes) but reserved political governance to New York
1788 New York Ratified the U. S. Constitution and became the eleventh state of the union
1791 New York’s eastern boundary was finally determined when Vermont was admitted as a state.
1796 The state capital moved from New York City to Albany.
1825 The Erie Canal (Between Albany and Great Lakes) was finished, furthering settlement of the Midwestern U. S. by 1842, rail lines connected Albany and Buffalo.
1839-45 The Anti-Rent war ended manorial system
1898 Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx were incorporated as boroughs of New York City.