Research Guides

A good point to begin genealogy research is to gather information about your immediate family. You might find much of the information needed by speaking to relatives or in scrapbooks and photo albums within your family. The following items are especially useful:

• Certificates of birth, marriage, or death
• Journals and diaries
• Letters and cards
• Photographs
• Obituaries and funeral programs
• Announcements of births and weddings
• Wills and deeds
• Military records
• Passports and citizenship documents
• School records
• Family Bibles

It is recommended that you record any information you discover on a Pedigree Chart or Family Group Record. Below is guidance on more resources when you’re ready to further your research.

Cemetery Records

Names of family members may be found on headstones or in cemetery records, and headstone groups and epitaphs might help to establish relationships between ancestors.

Early settlers in the area typically buried their dead in community cemeteries or family plots. There are at least four local cemeteries in the Levittown vicinity:

• Jackson Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in Wantagh, located just north of St. Frances de Chantal Church on Wantagh Avenue.

• The Jerusalem Society of Friends Cemetery is a Quaker burial ground located on Wantagh Avenue, north of Jerusalem Avenue. It is believed that an early burial ground for the Seaman family is among the land of this cemetery. John Seaman was one of the founders of the Town of Hempstead.

• Harold Avenue Cemetery, located west of Old Mill Road between Lawrence Place and Harold Avenue, was used by descendants of slaves who worked for the Jackson family to bury their dead.

• Saint John of Jerusalem Church and Cemetery was built in 1856 and was originally known as the Washington Street German Methodist-Episcopal Church. It is located on the West side of Wantagh Avenue about a half-mile north of North Jerusalem Avenue. German Methodist-Episcopal Mission Ancestors of the early congregants are buried in the cemetery.

Information on the history of these cemeteries and lists of those buried there are available in our vertical file and in the books Old Burying Ground and Cemeteries of Old Wantagh.

Church Records

Churches, synagogues, temples, and the like typically maintain the records of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, or burials of congregation members. These are especially important if civil vital records are unavailable for the time or region relevant to a particular ancestor you may be researching.

The surging population in Levittown following its development led to several new places of worship springing up, most of them Christian:

• St. Bernard’s Church held its first mass on November 7, 1948 inside of was was once an airplane hanger for the Aviation Country Club.
• Holy Family was established by Rev. Martin O’Dea north of the Old Motor Parkway, conducting its first mass in the Northside School on October 14, 1951.
• St. James Roman Catholic Church was founded by Rev. William A. Delaney in Plainedge in 1951.
• Levittown Community Church was organized in 1949 and held services at 100 Periwinkle Road. The building was purchased by the India Christian Assembly in 2015.
• The Wantagh Community Church held its first service in the Wantagh Fire House on June 20, 1954. It was officially incorporated on March 13, 1955 and a building at 1960 North Jones Avenue was purchased for regular services. The property is now occupied by the St. Markella Greek Orthodox Church.
• Calvary Lutheran Church in East Meadow was founded in 1950, holding its first mass in a vacant storefront on Hempstead Turnpike before its permanent location was constructed at 36 Taylor Avenue.
• The First Presbyterian Church of Levittown opened in 1951 on Wantagh Avenue. The church later merged with the Presbyterian Community Church of Massapequa to form the United Presbyterian Church.
• St. Frances de Chantal Roman Catholic Church was established in 1952 in Wantagh.
• The Christian Science Church in Levittown held its first meetings in 1948, when members met inside each other’s homes. The group was officially recognized as a branch church in 1953 and began conducting services at the Levittown Parkway Village Green. Construction of a permanent building for the congregation began in 1962 on Bellmore Road.
• Saint John of Jerusalem Church was built in 1856 and is the second oldest church structure remaining in Wantagh and the surrounding communities and is one of the few buildings still remaining from a time in which the Wantagh area was known as Jerusalem. It no longer holds services, but still maintains records.

Vital Records

Vital records such as birth, marriage, divorce, and death records began to be retained by state offices around 1900. Earlier records can usually be found with the County Clerk’s office.

↗ Town of Hempstead Registrar’s Office

↗ Nassau County Clerk’s Office

↗ Surrogate’s Court

Maps & Atlases

Land ownership maps are particularly useful for family research in that they visually note the names of landowners and their properties. An index of maps held in the Levittown History Collection is available here.