SUFFOLK COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE DIGITIZES DEED INDEX

(Riverhead, NY)  - Suffolk County Clerk Judith A. Pascale announced this week that the Suffolk County Clerk’s Office has completed the digitalization of a set of 560 Deed Index books.

“While the process of searching through these books was once limited to searching each separate physical book, users can now search through all 560 volumes which will be available at every station in our newly expanded public access area,” commented Suffolk County Clerk Judith A. Pascale.  “What is more significant about this innovation is that users will no longer have to wait for another person to finish using a book, as the entire subset of books from 1893 - 1968 are available at your fingertips.”

The process of digitalizing this subset of books was done entirely by the staff of the County Clerk’s Office and was paid for by grants awarded by New York State using state of the art technology.

“Because of the regular use of these books, rebinding and repair occur approximately every six years at an average cost of one thousand dollars per book.  However, now that these books have been recreated digitally, there will no longer be a need to continuously repair them, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars,” commented Pascale.

“As we continue to aggressively pursue grant money, it is our plan to digitalize the entire collection of deed indexes back to 1655,” concluded Suffolk County Clerk Judith A. Pascale.

These books are regularly used by the title searching and genealogical communities.