New York State Department of State Oaths of Office of Elected and Appointed State Officers

B0018-94, B0018-99: Arranged by legislative house and therein chronological by date of filing.

B0018-03, B0018-08: Chronological by date of filing.

B0018-16: Unarranged.

The oaths were recorded pursuant to Chapter 28 of the Laws of 1778, which required all persons holding offices or places under the state government to take an oath swearing to support the constitutions of the United States and New York State, as well as Revised Statutes (1829), Part I, Chap. 5, Art. 3 and Public Officers Law, sect. 10.

"State Officer" includes the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, members of the Legislature, justices of the Supreme Court, and Regents of the University of the State of New York. "State officer" also includes every other officer appointed by a state officer or by the Legislature who is authorized to exercise official functions throughout the entire state. The oaths of state officers are filed in the office of the Secretary of State.

This series consists of bound volumes and one box of unbound oaths of offices for a variety of public offices. The oaths of office contain the signatures of both elected and appointive officials and provide the name of the official to be sworn in, a copy of the text of the oath, the date, title of office and the signatures of the official sworn in, the Secretary of the State and/or the public official authorized to administer the oaths. The formats of the volumes differ from one another reflecting changes in the administration of the oaths.

Some of the earliest oaths are written on parchment sheets of varying sizes that were then bound into volumes. Later oaths were printed on forms and signed by the elected or appointed official. Four of the volumes in the series, covering the years 1856-1879, include oaths of office administered to each session of the legislature as a group. Those volumes include signature of Senator or Assembly member and his county, post office address, age, profession, and birthplace. For the most part the volumes are arranged in chronological order with most of them containing some sort of an index (name or title of office).

Volume lists for accretions, except for B0018-08, are available at the repository.

B0018-78: Early accretions for 1924, 1948, 1949 were changed to accession year 1978, the year the Archives opened. These three accretions were changed to B0018-78, B0018-78A, B0018-78B to facilitate access. In 2000, volumes were relabeled and the existing finding aid revised to reflect the new arrangement into single accretion B0018-78.

B0018-03: Although no documentation exists regarding the transfer of these volumes, they were most likely transferred to the State Archives by the Department of State. The volumes were accessioned in conjunction with a project undertaken by Archives staff in 2003 to describe or integrate estrayed or unidentified records. The volumes fill chronological gaps that exist both within B0018-78 and between B0018-78 and B0018-79.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this material.