LibGuides: Genealogy and Family History: State & Federal Records/ Census

State Records

Vital Records
Vital Record links for each state via Cyndi's List.
Online Searchable Death Indexes & Records
Links to websites with online death indexes, listed by state and county.

Federal Records

National Archives
An excellent place to start researching records held by the National Archives. Some government records are available through commercial vendors that have partnered with the National Archives. Many records have been microfilmed and are available at libraries and National Archives branch locations.
Public Land Records
Over ten million individual land transactions in the custody of the National Archives. The case files cover land entries in all 30 public land states.
Social Security Death Index
Several sites offer free access to this index. Updated periodically, the index is created from internal Social Security Administration (SSA) records of deceased persons possessing social security numbers and whose deaths were reported to the SSA.
Ellis Island
Free index to passenger arrival records for the Port of New York, 1892 to 1924.
One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse
If you can't find your ancestor in the Ellis Island Web site, try one of the indexes on this site.
Castle Garden
Free access to immigration records for the Port of New York from 1820 tthrough 1892, the year Ellis Island opened.

Federal Census Records

U.S. Federal Census records offer a snapshot of your ancestor every ten years beginning in 1790. Census records are arranged first by year, then state and finally by county. The early censuses list only the head of household and age groupings within that household. Starting in 1850, the census provides name, age and birthplace of each person. Each succeeding census offers more information including birthplace of mother and father, naturalization and occupation information. Learn more about the questions asked in each census here. Find general information on U.S. Census records here

The federal government restricts access to the census for 72 years for privacy reasons. We can view census records from 1790 to, and including, the 1940 census. The 1940 census was released in 2012 and is available for free on several sites including Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.

Genealogy and Family History

Searching Records

Taking the census

State Records

Federal Records

Federal Census Records