TYPES OF RECORDS
Click on the appropriate link to view the section of your interest.
Census Records
United States Census Records
Censuses are available for the following years:
1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840
*1850 (including slave schedules)
1860 (including slave schedules)
1870, 1880
**1890 (fragment, census substitute, and veteran's schedules)
1900, 1910, 1920, 1930
*The 1850 census was the first census in which the names of each family member was recorded.
** Most of the original 1890 population schedules were destroyed in a
fire at the Commerce Department in 1921. Less than 1% of the
schedules and records enumerating only 6,160 individuals survived.
Unfortunately, no complete schedules for a state, county, or community
survived.
United Kingdom Census Records
United Kingdom census records include England, Wales,
Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Censuses are available for these years:
1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901
Back
to Top
Vital Records
Birth:
Birth records usually show the name of the child, gender, date
and place
born, parents' names, and sometimes other data, such as parents'
birthplaces.
Marriage:
Marriage
records usually show names of the bride and groom, date and
place married, and sometimes other information, such as ages.
Death:
In addition to the name of
the person, death records usually provide
marital status (single, married, widowed, or divorced), cause of death,
date and place of death and burial, and sometimes the occupation, date
and place of birth, age, parents' names and their birthplaces (usually
state or country), and other useful information. The more recent the death
record, the more information you will find.
Back
to Top
Social
Security Death Index
The
SSDI is a compilation of information about deceased persons who filed
for and received Social Security numbers, who were paid Social Security
benefits at some point in their lives, and whose death was reported to the
Social Security Administration (SSA). However, there are instances when
someone is not reported in the SSDI.
1) Usually, a person whose name appears in the SSDI was employed, paid
money into Social Security and, at some time, applied for benefits of some
sort. The two most typical benefits paid were old age pension or disability
benefits. If the person paid into Social Security but never collected
benefits, you will not find him or her in the file.
2) The spouse of someone who paid into Social Security, but who never
worked and contributed to Social Security, will not be included in the file
unless he or she received their spouse's benefits after the spouse's death,
and even this is not a 100 percent certainty.
3) Persons who worked for the railroad exclusively and did not work in
another public sector will not be included in the SSDI. Those persons,
instead, contributed to Railroad Retirement, a separate retirement security
fund specifically for railroad workers and collected benefits from that
organization. Only if the person also worked for a company not affiliated
with the railroad will they appear in the SSDI, and they will appear with
their unique number assigned to railroad numbers (beginning with a 7).
4) If a person collected benefits at one time and his or her death was not
reported to Social Security, that person will not be included in the SSDI.
The
SSDI contains approximately 63 million records and the information
in it is, for the most part, reliable and accurate. However, information
concerning addresses and date of death may be incomplete or inaccurate
owing to information supplied by the person who reported the death.
Back
to Top
Church & Cemetery Records
Church records contain information about baptisms, marriages,
burials, and membership. In addition to the name of the person,
church records often provide information about family members.
Cemetery records can include tombstone inscriptions, burial
permits, and death indexes. These records usually show
names, birth and death dates; sometimes, they include
information on surviving family members.
Back
to Top
Military Records
Death Lists and Casualty Indexes
These records contain
information on soldiers
who were killed in action,
or died from
wounds received in
military service.
Draft Records
These records contain information on individuals who registered
for military drafts.
Pension Records
These records contain information about officers, disabled veterans,
needy veterans,
widows/orphans of veterans, and veterans that
received a pension from
the American
government.
Registration Cards
These cards contain information about the men who were required
to register for a
military draft.
Rosters
Rosters list the names of people who were assigned to specific
military units.
Service Records
These records comprise the information that the government keeps on
any soldier
(for example, enlistment/appointment, duty stations and
assignments, training,
qualifications,
performance, awards and medals,
disciplinary actions, insurance,
emergency data, administrative remarks,
separation, discharge, retirement, and
other personnel actions).
Back
to Top
Immigration Records
Passenger Lists
In 1819, the United States Congress enacted legislation to
regulate the
transport of passengers from foreign ports to the United States. As a
provision of this act, ships' captains were required to submit a list of
passengers to the collector of customs in the district in which the ship
arrived. These passenger lists comprise the vast majority of immigration
records. The content of passenger lists has changed significantly over
the years and information is sparse on earlier lists.
Passenger lists typically include these types of information:
Name, Age, Occupation
Place of origin
Destination in the United States
Name and type of ship
Port and date of departure, Port and date of arrival
View an original passenger list
Naturalization Records
Naturalization is the legal procedure by which an alien becomes
a citizen
of a state or country. Every nation has different sets of rules that determine
citizenship. Under the Basic Naturalization Act of 1906, naturalization forms
became standardized and were sent to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration
(later the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS]) for examination.
The formalized process required that a prospective citizen file a declaration
of intention in which he or she renounced allegiance to foreign sovereignties.
Following a waiting period of five years, an immigrant could then petition
a
federal court for formal citizenship.
Naturalization records typically include these types of information:
Applicant's name, Date and place of birth
Port and date of departure, Port and date of arrival
Last foreign address
Court location and date of petition or oath of allegiance
Physical description
Back
to Top
Court,
Land & Probate Records
Probate Records
Probate records are created at the time of an individual's death and
are the legal records associated with the dividing up of a deceased
person's property. These records might include information about an
individual's financial situation and assets, their occupation, the names
of their heirs and other family members.
Wills
A will is a legal document in which an individual declares what they
want done with their possessions or estate after their death. These
might include information about immediate family members or distant
relatives.
Deeds
A deed is typically a legal document that transfers property rights or
grants land ownership to a person. These records might include
information about residences and family members.
Land Records
There are many types of land records-title abstracts, land purchases,
grant, and more. Land records are typically one of the records kept from
the very early days of settlement in an area and may be available when
other records are not. These records provide information on relationships
between individuals, approximate relocation dates, and the financial state
of a family.
Back
to Top
Newspapers & Periodicals
You can discover a wealth of information about your ancestors from
many different kinds of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals.
These types of sources include obituaries and can often supplement
public records and provide information that is not recorded anywhere
else. You can learn more about your ancestor's lives by placing them
in the context of their daily lives.
Newspapers
Newspapers can be used to find valuable genealogical information
about historical events in the lives of our ancestors. They supply all
sorts of clues about vital statistics (birth, marriage, and death announcements),
obituaries, local news, biographical sketches, legal notices, immigration,
migration, and other historical items that place our ancestors in the context
of the society in which they lived.
Periodicals
Periodicals are one of most valuable printed sources for family historians,
Genealogical periodicals publish a variety articles: compiled genealogies,
methodology (how to do research) articles, Bible records, vital records
(births, marriages, and deaths), divorces, church records, census schedules
(federal and state), photographs of early settlers, probate abstracts, military
records, Civil War letters, migration articles, lists of voters, naturalization records,
newspaper abstracts, obituaries, abstracts of diaries, court records, gravestone
inscriptions, burial records, descriptions of genealogical collections, and much
more. You will also find book reviews, genealogical queries, and many other
items of interest to genealogists and historians.
Libraries, genealogical societies, and historical societies house genealogical
and historical periodicals. Some of the largest repositories of genealogical
periodicals and indexes include: Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana; Family History Library, Salt Lake City; Library of Congress; and
New York Public Library. Not to be overlooked are large university libraries,
such as Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
Back
to Top
Home | Portfolio | Custom
Designed Sites | How to Get Started
Genealogy Consultation | Research Services
| Extras | Contact
