Monday, March 28, 2011

FamilySearch.org U.S. Vital Record Collections summaries

Leland Meitzler has done the genealogy community a big favor on his GenealogyBlog - he has captured the current list of United States Vital Records historical record collections on the LDS FamilySearch site (https://www.familysearch.org/s/collection/list).  Leland has written three blog posts:

1)  United States Birth & Christening Records Found at FamilySearch.org - there are presently 47 databases for 34 states, plus one relatively small database covering the entire USA.  The states presently covered are:  Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of ColumbiaFlorida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin

2)  United States Death & Probate Records at FamilySearch.org - there are presently 78 databases for 41 states plus the District of Columbia. In addition, you will find two USA-wide indexes at the end of this list. Note that of the 78 databases, 27 of them contained digitized images of the original documents.   The states presently covered are:  Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Internet Genealogical Research, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Vital Records, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

3)  United States Marriage Documents & Indexes Found at FamilySearch.org  - there are presently 62 databases with records for 41 states and the District of Columbia.  The states presently covered are:  Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of ColumbiaFlorida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Leland has updated the Marriage list several times, and the Death list once.  Hopefully, he will continue to update these lists as more information is added to the FamilySearch Historical Records Collections.

Lists of the databases for each state, including the number of images and number of indexed records, can be created at the FamilySearch site (https://www.familysearch.org/s/collection/list) and using the search box in the top of the left-hand column.  Enter a state name in the search field and all of the databases with the state name in the collection title will appear.  This works for countries also.  Since FamilySearch is adding quite a few databases each month, check the state and country lists regularly.  They are much easier to find this way, rather than searching through the list of (currently 583) historical record collection titles. 

Thank you, Leland!  I really appreciate these vital record lists.

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