Iowa Genealogy

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Iowa Genealogy Research Guide

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Iowa Genealogy Research Guide

Quick Facts

Iowa entered the Union in 1846 as a public-domain state carved from the Louisiana Purchase, and settlement followed quickly once the land was surveyed and opened for sale. Its genealogical records are overwhelmingly county-based, but the state kept unusually frequent censuses, which makes Iowa one of the easier Midwestern states in which to follow a family across the decades.

• Capital: Des Moines, the seat of government since 1857. The territorial and early state capitals were Burlington (1838) and Iowa City (1841–1857).
• Statehood: December 28, 1846, the twenty-ninth state, formed from the Territory of Iowa (1838). The region had earlier belonged to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and, in turn, to Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin territories.
• Counties: 99. The two original counties, Des Moines and Dubuque, were laid out in 1834 while the area was attached to Michigan Territory; the grid of counties was substantially complete by the mid-1850s, with the last northwestern counties organized over the following two decades.
• Land type: Iowa is a federal (public-domain) state, not a state-land state. Title passed first from the United States through the General Land Office, so federal land patents — cash sales, homesteads, and military-bounty grants — document the original transfer of nearly every parcel, and later sales between individuals are recorded as county deeds.
• Nickname and motto: the Hawkeye State; the state motto is “Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain.”
• Where records live: most records — deeds, probate, court, naturalization, and vital records — are kept at the county level by the county recorder and the clerk of the district court, while statewide vital, census, and military records are held by the State Historical Society of Iowa.

Libraries and Archives

Iowa's principal collections cluster in Des Moines, home to the state government's records and the largest genealogical society, and in Iowa City, the older seat of the State Historical Society; county courthouses, public libraries, and local and ethnic societies hold material for their own communities. The leading repositories include:

• State Historical Society of Iowa — the State Archives, with research centers in Des Moines and Iowa City; holds statewide vital records, the original state censuses, land and military records, territorial and state government records, and manuscripts.
• State Library of Iowa — state documents, published local histories, and reference collections.
• Iowa Genealogical Society — a large collection of surname and county files, published genealogies, and cemetery, church, and Bible-record transcriptions gathered statewide.
• University of Iowa Libraries — the Iowa Digital Library, extensive manuscripts, and the Iowa Women's Archives.
• Iowa State University Library — agricultural and rural-life collections and university records.
• National Archives at Kansas City — federal court, naturalization, land-entry, and military records for Iowa.
• Herbert Hoover Presidential Library — a National Archives facility at West Branch with presidential and related manuscript collections.
• The FamilySearch Library and its worldwide FamilySearch Centers, which hold extensive Iowa microfilm and digital collections.
• Specialty and ethnic repositories: the Museum of Danish America at Elk Horn; the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library at Cedar Rapids; the Amana Heritage Society; the Archdiocese of Dubuque for Catholic sacramental records; and the Northwestern College Archives & Dutch Heritage Collection and Pella Historical Society for the Dutch settlements.

Major Websites

These sites host digitized Iowa records and indexes. Subscription sites are marked ($).

• FamilySearch — free; the backbone finding aid, with the FamilySearch Research Wiki, catalog, and large digitized collections of Iowa vital, census, land, probate, court, and church records.
• Ancestry ($) — extensive Iowa vital, census, naturalization, military, and county collections.
• MyHeritage ($) — Iowa vital records, censuses, and immigration collections.
• Findmypast ($) — Iowa marriage indexes and other collections.
• Iowa Digital Library — free; digitized manuscripts, photographs, and local history from the University of Iowa.
• Iowa Heritage Digital Collections — free; a shared digital library of historical materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the state.
• State Historical Society of Iowa — free; the State Archives' digitized record series and finding aids.
• Chronicling America — free; the Library of Congress's digitized historic Iowa newspapers.
• Find a Grave and BillionGraves — free; cemetery listings, photographs, and transcriptions.

Law and Government

Iowa's territorial and state laws explain the jurisdictions and record-keeping practices that produced genealogical records, and most of the foundational texts have been digitized and are free to read.

• The acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Iowa (1838–1846), including the first compilation, the Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa (1839), are digitized on the Internet Archive and on HathiTrust.
• The Code of Iowa of 1851, the first code adopted after statehood, is free on HathiTrust; the later revisions and codifications of 1860, 1873, and 1897 are digitized on the Internet Archive and HathiTrust as well.
• The Iowa Code Archive offers free page images of every published Code of Iowa, and the annual session laws appear in the Iowa Acts.
• The State Historical Society of Iowa holds the territorial and state government records — legislative, executive, and judicial — that underlie the published laws.

Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)

Statewide vital registration began on July 1, 1880, when the Iowa State Board of Health was created and directed county and local registrars to record births, marriages, and deaths; marriages had been recorded at the county level much earlier, from the organization of each county. Registration duties were loosely defined at first, so many births and deaths went unrecorded until the system tightened in the early 1920s. Records live in two places: the county recorder holds the local originals, while the State Historical Society of Iowa (as the State Archives) and the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services hold the statewide copies.

Access. Under Iowa law the State Archives makes birth and marriage records open to the public once they are at least seventy-five years old and death records once they are at least fifty years old. More recent certified copies from the state or a county are issued only to the person named on the record or a close relative — a spouse, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling — or a legal representative, and a fee applies. Use the free indexes below to find a name, date, and county, then order the certificate from the county recorder or the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

• Births: Iowa Births and Christenings, 1830–1950 and Iowa, County Births, 1880–1935 are free on FamilySearch; the same events are indexed on Ancestry ($) and on MyHeritage ($).
• Marriages: Iowa Marriages, 1809–1992 and Iowa, County Marriages, 1838–1934 are free on FamilySearch; also on Ancestry ($) and on MyHeritage ($).
• Deaths: Iowa Deaths and Burials, 1850–1990 and Iowa, County Death Records, 1880–1992 are free on FamilySearch; also on Ancestry ($) and, for 1900–1939, on MyHeritage ($).
• Recent records within the current access limits are obtained from the county recorder where the event occurred or from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

History and Timeline of Major Events

Key dates that shaped Iowa's jurisdictions and records:

• 1673 — Marquette and Jolliet pass along the Mississippi at Iowa's eastern edge.
• 1788 — Julien Dubuque begins lead mining near the future city of Dubuque.
• 1803 — The Louisiana Purchase brings the region under United States sovereignty.
• 1808–1834 — The area is attached successively to the territories of Illinois, Missouri, and Michigan.
• 1832–1833 — After the Black Hawk War, the Black Hawk Purchase opens the first Mississippi-shore lands to legal settlement.
• 1834 — Michigan Territory lays out the original counties of Des Moines and Dubuque.
• 1836 — A Wisconsin Territory census enumerates those first Iowa counties.
• 1838 — Congress creates the Territory of Iowa, with its capital at Burlington.
• 1841 — The territorial capital moves to Iowa City.
• December 28, 1846 — Iowa is admitted as the twenty-ninth state.
• 1847 — Dutch settlers found Pella under Henry P. Scholte.
• 1855 — The Inspirationists begin building the Amana Colonies in Iowa County.
• 1856 — The Meskwaki begin purchasing the land near Tama that became their settlement.
• 1857 — The capital moves to Des Moines and a new state constitution is adopted.
• 1867 — A rail line is completed across the state to Council Bluffs, speeding settlement of the west.
• 1880 — Statewide civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths begins.

Census Records and Substitutes

Federal censuses were taken every ten years from 1840 through 1950, and Iowa appears in all of them, though its 1890 federal schedules were almost entirely destroyed. They are free on FamilySearch and on the National Archives 1950 census site, and are also searchable on Ancestry ($) and MyHeritage ($). Iowa also appears in the 1836 Wisconsin Territory census and the 1838 and 1840 territorial enumerations.

State censuses are one of Iowa's great strengths. The state or its predecessors enumerated the population in 1836, 1838, 1844, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1851, 1852, 1854, 1856, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, and 1925, so that together with the federal counts a family can often be placed every few years. The earliest are little more than head-of-household lists and survive unevenly; the later ones are extraordinarily detailed. What each of the major state censuses records varies by year:

• 1836, 1838, 1844, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1851, 1852, and 1854: territorial and early state enumerations that generally name only the head of each household with tallies of the others; survival varies widely by county, and many are held at the State Archives or transcribed locally.
• 1856: names every member of the household and adds each person's age, place of birth, and the number of years lived in Iowa, which helps approximate arrival dates.
• 1885: names everyone and adds each person's county of birth (if born in Iowa), the birthplaces of both parents, and militia and citizenship details; indexed free on FamilySearch.
• 1895: repeats the 1885 detail and records the household's births and deaths of the previous year and any Civil War or Mexican War service; indexed free on FamilySearch.
• 1905: adds the specific birthplace of each person's father and mother, home and farm ownership, the number of years in the United States and in Iowa, and military service; indexed free on FamilySearch.
• 1915: an exceptionally rich schedule that also records education, earnings, religious affiliation, and years of residence; indexed free on FamilySearch.
• 1925: the last and most detailed state census, giving each person's parents by name — including the mother's maiden name — and the place where the parents were married, along with religion and education; indexed free on FamilySearch.

A single consolidated index to the surviving state censuses of 1836 through 1925 is available on Ancestry ($). Where census returns are missing, city directories and tax lists (below) are the best substitutes for placing a family in a given year, and the non-population (agricultural, industrial, and mortality) schedules of 1850 through 1880 add further detail.

Church Records

Because civil registration came late and was incomplete for its first forty years, church records are the most important substitute for vital records before the 1880s. Iowa's settlers brought a wide range of faiths: Methodists, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Quakers were the most widespread, while Dutch Reformed and Christian Reformed congregations followed the Dutch settlements and German Catholic and Mennonite communities the German ones. Baptismal, marriage, and burial registers from these congregations often reach back a generation before the county records begin.

• FamilySearch offers several free statewide indexes, including Iowa, Church Records, 1839–2004, Iowa, Church and Civil Births and Baptisms, 1837–1987, and Iowa, Church and Civil Deaths, 1845–1987; thousands of individual congregational registers can also be found through the FamilySearch Catalog by county and town.
• The Archdiocese of Dubuque and the other Iowa Catholic dioceses hold parish sacramental registers; requests are made to the parish or diocesan archive where the sacrament was recorded.
• The Amana Heritage Society keeps the communal records of the Amana Colonies, and the Iowa Genealogical Society holds church and cemetery transcriptions gathered from across the state.

The William Wade Hinshaw index to Iowa Quaker meeting records and the published Quaker Records: Iowa Monthly Meetings are free on FamilySearch and the Internet Archive, and are the standard route into the state's large Quaker community.

Court Records

Iowa's courts reach well beyond lawsuits into estates, guardianships, naturalizations, adoptions, and name changes, so their records are worth understanding even for families that never sued anyone. The system changed several times:

• District Court (1838–present) — the principal trial court of record, with broad civil, criminal, probate, and (before 1906) naturalization jurisdiction; the clerk of the district court holds its files at the county courthouse.
• County Court (1851–1868) — a county-level court that handled probate, county business, and minor cases before those functions passed to the district court.
• Circuit Court (1869–1886) — shared civil and probate jurisdiction with the district court for a time; its records are usually filed with the district court's.
• Justice of the peace and, later, municipal and police courts handled minor local matters and petty offenses.
• Supreme Court (1838–present) — the court of last resort, whose published reports and case files are held by the state.

Because Iowa was organized county by county from the start, the county courthouse — and the FamilySearch microfilm of its holdings — is almost always the place to look for court records.

Ethnic/Minority Records

Iowa drew immigrants from across northern and central Europe, and knowing where a group settled points to the records — and the ethnic archives — most likely to document a family.

• Germans. The largest immigrant group, present statewide but concentrated in the eastern counties and river towns; German Catholic, Lutheran, and Methodist parish registers are essential sources. The Amana Heritage Society interprets the communal records of the seven German Inspirationist villages founded in Iowa County from 1855.
• Dutch. Two large settlements anchor Dutch research: Pella, founded in Marion County in 1847, and Orange City and the surrounding Sioux County towns. The Pella Historical Society and the Northwestern College Archives & Dutch Heritage Collection at Orange City hold church registers, immigration lists, and the Dutch-language press.
• Scandinavians. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish immigrants settled the northern and western counties; Elk Horn and Kimballton in Shelby and Audubon counties form the largest rural Danish settlement in the country, documented at the Museum of Danish America.
• Czechs and Bohemians. Cedar Rapids became a major center of Czech settlement; the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library holds family-history and immigrant records.
• Meskwaki (Sac and Fox). Rather than removal to a reservation, the Meskwaki purchased land near Tama beginning in 1856 and built the Meskwaki Settlement, whose history is distinct from the federal Indian records of most tribes.
• African Americans. Black Iowans clustered in the coal-mining town of Buxton and in cities such as Des Moines, where Fort Des Moines trained the first Black U.S. Army officers; Freedmen's Bureau and Freedman's Bank records and African American newspapers are searchable on FamilySearch and complemented by the holdings of the State Historical Society of Iowa.

Additional community records — naturalizations, foreign-language newspapers, and church registers — are described in the county pages of the FamilySearch Research Wiki and held by the local societies named above.

Immigration and Naturalization

Iowa is an inland state with no seaport, so its immigrants first landed at Atlantic and Gulf ports — New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans — or crossed from Canada, then reached Iowa by river and rail. The records that matter most locally are therefore naturalizations rather than passenger lists.

Naturalization. Before 1906 any court of record could naturalize, so in Iowa the papers — declarations of intention, petitions, and certificates — are usually found in the district court records held by the clerk of court in each county. After the process was federalized in 1906, copies went to the federal government and the district court continued to hear cases. The main finding aids are:

• Iowa Naturalization Records, 1859–1990 — free on FamilySearch, digitized from the holdings of the National Archives at Kansas City.
• Iowa, Federal Naturalization Records, 1856–1937 ($) on Ancestry.
• The National Archives at Kansas City holds the federal court naturalizations for Iowa; declarations and petitions for many counties are also browsable free on FamilySearch.

For the ocean crossing itself, search the passenger-arrival records of the port where an ancestor landed; the Canadian border-crossing records, which begin in 1895, are indexed on Ancestry and free on FamilySearch and are useful for immigrants who entered through Canada.

Land Records

As a federal public-domain state, Iowa was surveyed into townships and sections and then sold or granted by the United States, so the first owner of nearly every parcel received a federal land patent. Later transfers between individuals are county deeds. Both layers must be searched: the federal patent to identify the first owner and roughly when the land was taken up, and the county deeds for everything after.

Where the records are kept.

• Federal patents: the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records site — free — is searchable by name for the cash, homestead, and military-bounty patents that first conveyed Iowa land, with digitized survey plats and field notes; the underlying land-entry case files, holding the full application papers, are kept by the National Archives.
• County level: the county recorder records deeds and mortgages, generally from the organization of each county. Many counties' deed books are digitized on FamilySearch, and the free Iowa Land Records portal links the county recorders' online records statewide.
• State level: the State Historical Society of Iowa holds territorial and early state land papers, tract books, and plat maps.

Two tracts worth knowing individually.

• The Black Hawk Purchase (1832–1833): the roughly fifty-mile-wide strip along the Mississippi ceded after the Black Hawk War — the first Iowa land legally opened to settlement. Families in the eastern tier of counties often trace back to entries made soon after it opened.
• The Half-Breed Tract (Lee County): a triangular tract of about 119,000 acres between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers, set aside in the 1820s for people of mixed Sac and Fox and European descent. A tangle of competing claims led to a famous partition suit, so titles there are unusually complex and the deeds repay careful study.

Online, FamilySearch Full-Text Search — free — makes many unindexed Iowa deeds, patents, and related land papers searchable by every name they contain, including grantors, grantees, and witnesses.

Military Records

Iowa took part in every national conflict from the Black Hawk War onward and made an outsized contribution to the Union in the Civil War. The State Historical Society of Iowa holds the Adjutant General's records — muster rolls, enlistment papers, and service abstracts — from the territorial period through the early twentieth century; note that the federal pension files for Iowa's volunteers are held not by the state but by the National Archives.

• Black Hawk War and Mexican War: service in these early conflicts is documented in federal rolls and, for the Mexican War, in the sixth volume of the state's Roster and Record (below).
• Civil War: the six-volume Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion — free on the Internet Archive — abstracts the service of every Iowa soldier by regiment and is the essential starting point. Iowa Regiments in the Civil War ($) and Iowa Civil War Soldier Burial Records ($) supplement it, Union service records are free on FamilySearch, and the 1885 and 1895 state censuses also record Civil War service.
• Spanish-American War and the Philippine campaigns: covered in the sixth volume of the Roster and Record and in the Adjutant General's abstracts at the State Historical Society.
• World War I: Iowans registered for the federal draft in 1917–1918 (draft cards are free on FamilySearch), and the state later gathered soldiers' bonus and service records; veterans' discharge records have been filed with county recorders since the early twentieth century.

Probate Records

Probate — wills, administrations of intestate estates, and guardianships of minors and dependents — is among the richest sources for family relationships, because an estate file typically names the surviving spouse, children, and other heirs.

In Iowa, probate has always been a county matter: the county court held probate jurisdiction from 1851 to 1868, after which the district court took it over, and the clerk of the district court is the custodian of the case files at the county courthouse. The State Historical Society of Iowa holds some of the earliest records, and both indexes and images are widely digitized.

• Iowa, Wills and Probate Records, 1758–1997 ($) on Ancestry — name-searchable across most counties.
• County probate and estate collections for many individual counties are free on FamilySearch and browsable by county through the FamilySearch Catalog.
• FamilySearch Full-Text Search — free — makes many unindexed Iowa wills and estate files searchable by every name they contain.

Tax Records

Tax lists place a family in a specific township and year, and a run of consecutive years can reveal when a young man came of age, when a household arrived or left, and when an estate passed to heirs — making them valuable substitutes where censuses or deeds are missing.

• The State Historical Society of Iowa holds territorial and early state tax assessment rolls; county treasurers and auditors hold the later assessments, and many are available on FamilySearch microfilm.
• Iowa, Old Age Tax Assistance Records, 1934–1958 — free on FamilySearch — a distinctive Iowa source that can list a taxpayer's birthplace, parents' names, and address in addition to the tax paid.
• U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862–1918 ($) on Ancestry — the Civil War–era and later federal income, license, and excise taxes, including the Iowa districts.