Your First 30 Days of Family History Research
A week-by-week plan for starting your family tree the right way, from interviewing relatives to finding your first census record.
Birth, Marriage & Death Records
Vital records, and the substitutes to use for the years before states kept them.
Finding Ancestors Before Statewide Vital Records
Most states didn't require birth and death certificates until the early 1900s. Here's where to look instead.
Finding Obituaries and Death Records
Death records often hold the most family information of any document. Here is where to find certificates, obituaries and indexes, and how to read them carefully.
Cemetery Research and Reading Gravestones
How to find where an ancestor is buried, what to look for on the stone and in the cemetery office, and how to photograph old markers without damaging them.
Church Records: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials Before the State Kept Track
What each denomination recorded, where the registers are today, and how to find your ancestor's congregation.
Finding a Woman's Maiden Name: 15 Places to Look
Women's maiden names are among the hardest facts to find in American records. These are the record types most likely to reveal one, and how to use them.
World War I and II Draft Registration Cards
Nearly every American man born between about 1872 and 1900 filled out a WWI draft card, and millions more registered for WWII. What the cards say, who is in them, and how to find them free.
Social Security Records for Genealogy: SSDI, Applications and the Numident
How to use the Social Security Death Index, order a copy of an ancestor's SS-5 application, and search the free Numident records that often name parents.
Finding Birth Family: Adoption Research with Records and DNA
How adoptees and their descendants can search for birth family using original birth certificates, court records, registries and, most powerfully, DNA.
Old Causes of Death Decoded: Dropsy, Consumption, Apoplexy and More
What the causes of death on old death certificates, burial records and mortality schedules usually meant, why they're often vague, and what they can tell you about your family.
Mortality Schedules (1850–1885): The Census of the Dead
For four decades, census takers also listed everyone who had died in the previous year. What the mortality schedules record, where to find them, and why they matter for deaths that left no other trace.
Divorce Records: Finding Marriages That Ended
Divorce was more common in the past than many families admit, and divorce files can be rich in detail. Where divorce records are kept, how to find them, and what else to check.
Twentieth-Century Brick Walls: Finding People Born 1900–1950
Recent ancestors can be surprisingly hard to find, because privacy rules close many records. The sources that are open, and how to use them for grandparents and great-grandparents.
Mexican and Hispanic Ancestors: Parish and Civil Records
Mexican and Hispanic family history can often be traced back centuries in Catholic parish and civil records, many of them free. How names work, where the records are, and how to bridge the border.
Italian Ancestors: Civil Records, the Antenati Portal and Citizenship Records
Italian civil records are some of the best in the world, and many are free online. How to find your ancestor's comune, use the Antenati portal, read the records, and what to know about citizenship by descent.
Find the records
Websites and archives for this topic are in our Resource Directory under Census & Vital Records.
Other topics
Getting Started 21Census Records 16Birth, Marriage & Death Records 15Church Records 12Cemeteries & Burials 2Newspapers & Obituaries 3Land & Property Records 7Wills, Probate & Court Records 13Tax Records 3Military Records 5Immigration & Naturalization 12DNA & Genetic Genealogy 9Libraries & Archives 8Research in the Old Country 10African American Research 2Research Methods & Evidence 31Brick Walls 11Organizing Your Research 7Online Sites & Family Trees 11