Prepared by a noted authority on Long Island, New York families for the Lewis Publishing Company, this four-volume work contains hundreds of genealogical essays pertaining to New York City families. While similar in a number of respects to the regional collections of family histories for New York State compiled by William R. Cutter and Cuyler Reynolds and reprinted by Clearfield Company, this collection departs from that pattern in a few important respects. The first 75 pages or so of Volumes I and II are devoted to topics of a historical nature, such as the settlement of New Amsterdam, Dutch governors, the English conquest, early schools of New York City, pioneering New York newspapers, and so forth. Interspersed among the family histories, moreover, are sketches of a number of the oldest churches of New York.