Finding Records Online - Louisiana

Another week has gone by without an insightful post from me. I need to stop volunteering for so many things. Last night I worked at the Family History Center and did Cub Scouts. Today I did a job fair for students at the Academy of Coastal and Environmental Studies. Last week I did a TV spot for our local Arboretum. All this and working a regular job or two. At least I can tell those people who claim not to have enough time to do family history research that they are not nearly as busy as me ;-)

Now on to the blog for today. I am continuing my listing of state records websites. Today I move on to Louisiana. This one is a little difficult for me since I have not done any research here and therefore have not used the online databases as much as some of the others.

Louisiana has several records indexes online. All of these sites require you to order the actual record for $2 to $5 per copy so you want to make sure you have the right one before ordering.

The first site is the Louisiana State Archives which can be found online at http://www.sos.louisiana.gov/tabid/53/Default.asp. Once on the site you will want to check under the Research Library tab to see what records are available. This site has indexes for passenger manifests, confederate pension applications and vital records. The vital records include deaths (1911-1956) with some areas such as Orleans Parish having some death notices back to 1804. Additionally, you can find Orleans Parish birth records (1819-1907) with some records back to 1790 and Orleans Parish marriage records (1870-1957) with some records back to 1831.

Some additional sites for vital records online include the New Orleans Daily Picayune Death Index which covers the years 1837-1857 and 1870. This index can be found at

http://nutrias.org/~nopl/info/louinfo/deaths/deaths.htm. The New Orleans Justice of the Peace Marriage Records for 1846-1880 can be found at

http://nutrias.org/~nopl/inv/jpmarrindex/jpmarrindex.htm. The New Orleans Daily Picayune Marriage Index for 1837-1857 can be found at

http://nutrias.org/~nopl/info/louinfo/newsmarr/newsmarr.htm.

As you can tell, the availability of online records outside New Orleans is pretty sparce at this time. If you have any sites that you have used to find Louisiana records online please pass them along.

Finding Records Online – Illinois

As I continue to focus on the availability of online records for specific states I noticed that Diane Haddad has also written about the Illinois records today on her blog at http://blog.familytreemagazine.com. I guess great minds think alike, or maybe it is just a coincidence. But before I start the list of databases available online for Illinois, I wanted to add a mention of the 25,000^th record digitized at the FamilySearch website at http://www.familysearch.org. These records are wonderful resources and can be found when you do a search of the Library Catalog. As you search for the microfilm, fiche or book that you need you may come across a document marked “To view a digital version of this item click here.” These records are viewable online and have an every word search capability. This is a wonderful resource so make sure you try it out. 

Now, on to Illinois. There are a huge number of records that have been indexed and placed online for the state of Illinois. The Illinois State Archives records are found on two identical sites. One site is located at http://www.sos.state.il.us/departments/archives/databases.html while the other is found at http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases.html. 

Land Records - The Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales database includes nearly 550,000 land sales records from the land sold within Illinois for the periods of 1817-1819 and 1847-1877. This database is searchable and provides information such as the purchaser's name, purchase date, number of acres, price per acre, numeric code indicating the county in which the land is located, legal description (township, section, range), volume and page numbers of original entry, and variously, the sale type, and the purchaser's sex and residence. Photocopies of these records can be ordered from the state for a fee of $10 for 2 record copies. 

Slave/Servant Records – The Database of Servitude and Emancipation Records includes 3,400 names of African and Indian servants from 1722-1863. The names of servants, slaves, or free persons and masters, witnesses, or related parties are listed in this database. These records may include bills of sale, birth information, census records from 1810, 1818 and 1820, divorce information, donations of property or chattel, emancipation records, estate records, guardianship records, indenture agreements, inventories of slaves, leases of services, marriage contracts, mortgages of slaves, registrations such as receipts, contracts and other agreements, and wills. Photocopies of these records can be obtained from the State Archives. 

Veterans Records – There are a variety of veterans records available on the Illinois State Archives website. These databases include indexes of the War of 1812, Winnebago War, Black Hawk War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, and an index of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home Residents between 1887-1916. Again, copies of all of the actual records can be requested from the State Archives. 

Marriage Records – The Illinois Statewide Marriage Index is a record of more than one million marriages within the state between 1763 and 1900. There are a few records up through 1920. These records include the name of the groom and bride, date of marriage, certificate number and county. 

Death Records – The Illinois Statewide Death Index includes an index of records from the 1870s to 1916 and currently contains over 1.1 million records. Additionally, there is a second Statewide Death Index that covers the years 1916-1950. These records include the name, date of death, location, age and sex of the individual as well as the certificate number. 

In addition to these statewide databases there are a number of county indexes listed on the Illinois State Archives website. These local records indexes include death, birth, naturalization, almshouse, homicide, coroner’s inquest, will, court, probate, farm, guardianship and other record types. This is a great site for anyone who has ancestors in Illinois.

And now I am off to open the Family History Center and to set up for our Cub Scout Space Derby. Another busy night ahead of me.

Finding Records Online – Arizona

I decided to start a series of discussions on finding free online vital records for each state. I started a list of the websites for each state a little over a year ago and decided that I should share this information for those of us looking for our families. I will try to keep it in some semblance of alphabetical order but since some states have not yet adopted the internet as a place to store records I will have to skip them for now. I may also decide to periodically interupt the state list with some other topic that I feel like writing about.

The topic for today is the birth, death and marriage records of Arizona. The state of Arizona is currently hosting birth and death records on their website at http://genealogy.az.gov.  For privacy reasons the records found on this site are restricted to birth records at least 75 years old (1855-1932) and death records at least 50 years old (1844-1957). The site will be updated yearly by adding the next year to the searchable records and older records will be added as they are indexed. The information found within these records was extracted from photo reproductions of the original certificates by volunteers from the Mesa Regional Family History Center.

The search screen for this site is easy to navigate. You can search by name for both birth and death records or you can select either the birth or death records. Birth records are shown in blue font while the death records are shown in red font to make them easy to distinguish. The search results link directly to the images of the records in pdf format. That makes it easy to download and print copies of the documents. This site was first posted in February, 2004 and has had almost 6 million records requests since then.

Marriage records for Arizona and other western states can be found on the BYU Idaho Western States Marriage Record Index web site at http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/westernStates/search.cfm. The site provides an index of extracted records but does not currently host the digital copies of the records. Arizona marriage records start with pre-1900 records and continue through the 1930’s. Some states have records going back to the 1700’s. There are currently close to 700,000 records from all the western states housed in this database and more records are being added daily. They are currently beta testing a new enhanced records search feature.

Each entry on this site may contain names of bride and groom, marriage date and place, county where the marriage is recorded, residency of the bride and groom and other miscellaneous comments. Anyone interested in adding names to the index can contact the Idaho Falls Regional Family History Center.