United States

Getting started with United States research

Numerous articles are available on FamilySearch Wiki to help you get started in family history. This portal will provide links to articles about general research topics.

Principles of Family History Research

1. Identify What You Know
2. Decide What You Want to Learn
3. Select Records to Search
4. Obtain and Search the Records
5. Use the Information

States

Click on a state to go to that state's page:

Research Strategies

• Principles of Family History Research
• How to Locate Your Ancestor in the United States
• How to Recognize your United States Ancestor

Research Tools

• United States Record Selection Table
• Listing of all records collections for the U.S. available on FamilySearch.org.
• Printable Maps from the National Atlas of the United States -- The Reference and Outline Maps of the United States and of the individual states are of most value to a genealogist. Other types of maps are also available from this site.
  
• Tracing Immigrant Origins
• United States Census Bureau State and County Map.  This map will allow you to zoom in on any State or County in the United States and read the names of all of the neighboring Counties. This makes it easy to see close by locations where other relatives might have lived. This map shows current Counties, consult the individual State Maps section to find out about historical maps. You can even type in a county name in the search box to locate the county on the map.
• A complete descriptive and statistical gazetteer of the United States of America ...: with an abstract of the census and statistics for 1840 (Compiled by Daniel Haskel, John Calvin Smith pub 1843)
• BYU United States Research Outline largely duplicates these Wiki pages. Includes some bibliographic lists from BYU Library, 2001.
  

Wiki articles describing online collections are found at:

• United States Census Mortality Schedules, 1850 through 1880 (FamilySearch Historical Records)
• United States Census Slave Schedule, 1850 (FamilySearch Historical Records)
• United States Index to General Correspondance of the Records and Pension Office (FamilySearch Historical Records)
• United States, Remarried Widows Index to Pension Applications (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Territories and Federal District

Former Territories

Help Wanted  

Interested in editing or adding to the Wiki? The United States page, the state pages, and the county pages need you! Here are some simple ways you can add information other researchers need! 

• Add links to the David Rumsey Map Collection for the state or county in question. For an example, see the Pennsylvania. 
• Volunteer to be a moderator for the United States portal, or one of the unclaimed states. Contact us   to express your interest in this role. 
• Add each state or county's creation date and parent states/counties. This information can be found using the Place Search  in the Family History Library Catalog.
  
• Add links to digitized state and county histories. A large collection of such histories is Brigham Young University's Family History Archives. A shortcut to searching it for local histories is on the BYU-FHL Digital Books Collection page. 

• Want your name in lights? The United States Maps needs a major overhaul, and as soon as it's done I'd like to put it on the Featured Content section of this page. The current United States Maps article, was written years ago with printed sources in mind. Today roughly 80% of a genealogist's needs for U.S. maps can be met by using a few incredible, free Websites. If you'd like to overhaul this page, have at it! For ideas, see the United States Maps discussion page.