USA
American Ancestors $ was founded in 1845, the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) and is the country’s leading resource for family history research, helping genealogists of all skill levels improve their knowledge and understanding of their family and its place in history. Their websitei s the online repository for more than 1.4 billion searchable names from America and beyond.
The Congregational Library began in 1853 and is an internationally recognized resource for researchers of all kinds, from professional historians to church members curious about their roots — anyone wanting to understand more about a religious tradition that has deeply informed American culture, beginning with the seventeenth-century Puritans and continuing on through nineteenth-century abolitionists and social reformers to the work of modern-day Congregational churches toward a just and open society.
The Ellis Island Passenger Search database is home to 65 million records of passengers arriving to the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957.
Genealogy Trails is a group of volunteers dedicated to helping researchers track their ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data for the free use of all researchers.
Library of Congress is the largest library in the world and is the main research body for the US Congress
The National Archives are the American government's record keeper.
The New York Public Library has almost a million records in its database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
The USGenWeb® Project was established to create free online resources for genealogical research, beginning with online directories of text-based resources, to a network of over 3000 linked websites, all individually created and maintained by a community of volunteers. Today you may find a variety of unique county and state resources including photos, maps, transcriptions, historical documents, helpful links, and much more.
The Western States Marriage Record Index is run by Brigham Young University.
The Allen County Public Library in Allentown Pennsylvania has one of the best genealogy sections anywhere and its video collection is superb and added to weekly.
Digital Libraray on American Slavery is an excellent source on African American genealogy
Enslaved - People of the HIstorical Slave Trade gives access to record of those enslaved, owned slaves or participated in the slave trade.
International African American Museum - another good source of African American genealogy.
Linkpendium - a 10,000,000+ resource directory to everything on the Web about families worldwide and genealogically-relevant information about U.S. states and counties. We cover both free and subscription sites, with a strong emphasis upon free resources provided by libraries, other government agencies, genealogical and historical societies, and individuals.
Websites by state
Alabama
Alabama Department of Archives & History - The archives’ digital collections include slave bills of sale (under Textual Materials > Slavery), voter registration books from 1867 and 1875, WWI service records, and “Active Military Service Reports” (records of military service between 1940 and 1966). You’ll also find incarceration records from 1841 to 1979 and 1983 to the present.
AlabamaMosaic - Digitized records from archives and libraries include family histories, school yearbooks, naturalization records, photos and Civil War diaries and letters
Alaska
Alaska State Archives: Genealogy - These indexes cover naturalization records (1888–1972); probate records (1883–1960); birth, marriage and death records (1816–1998); and records of WWI veterans.
American Samoa
American Samoa Genealogy - Created by researcher Bob Jenkins, this website has a few records and yearbooks, plus links to key resources and collections for researching Samoan ancestry.
Arizona
Arizona Memory Project - Archives, libraries and museums contributed newspapers, oral histories, land-ownership maps, city and telephone directories, school yearbooks and much more for this collection.
Arkansas
Arkansas Digital Archives
California
Calisphere - Search more than two million images, texts and recordings from California libraries, archives and museums. You’ll find photographs, county jail registers, letters, diaries and more.
Online Archive of California - This site describes collections of diaries, letters, photographs and other items from more than 300 organizations across the Golden State. You can view more than 240,000 digital images and documents.
Colorado
Denver Public Library Digital Collections - Highlights of this huge collection include Civil War records, city directories and school yearbooks, plus indexes to marriage, cemetery, mortuary, naturalization, obituary, draft and pioneer records.
Connecticut
Connecticut Collections - Drawing on digitized materials from libraries, historical societies and museums, this collection includes many genealogy files, diaries and family Bibles
Delaware
Delaware Public Archives - Select Digital Archives from the Research tab to access Civil War records, naturalization records, slavery papers and more. Select Collections Gateway to search indexes of various collections, including Bible records, manuscript genealogies and apprentice indentures.
Florida
University of Florida Digital Collections - This site’s 476 digital collections include many manuscript genealogies, diaries, oral histories and old newspapers.
Georgia
Digital Library of Georgia - Archives, libraries and museums have contributed books, photographs and newspapers—plus collections of manuscript genealogies and diaries—to this impressive database. You’ll also find some records naming the enslaved.
Georgia Archives - The Virtual Vault section has records from 1733 to the present, including Colonial wills, Confederate pension applications, marriage records, death certificates (mostly from 1914 to 1927) and the General Name File compiled from various records by archives staff.
Guam
Guam Genealogy - Bob Jenkins created this website to gather records and links to resources useful for researching Guam ancestry.
Hawaii
Hawai’i State Archives - From the Genealogy Research Guide , find indexes to marriages, deaths, passenger lists, obituaries, naturalization records and more.
Idaho
Idaho State Historical Society - Search for your ancestor in indexes to naturalization records, Civil War veterans, pension records, an inmate catalog and the Idaho Biographical Index (compiled from various sources).
Illinois
Illinois Digital Archives - Search oral histories, local histories, Civil War diaries, letters, prison records, naturalization records, photographs and newspapers from across Illinois.
Illinois Newspaper Project - The Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) identifies, preserves, and digitizes Illinois newspapers.
Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection
Illinois State Genealogical Society
Indiana
Indiana State Library
Iowa
Iowa Digital Library - Created by the University of Iowa Libraries and its partners, this collection has more than a million items, including diaries and letters from the Civil War and both World Wars, county atlases, yearbooks and copies of government posters.
The Iowa Heritage Digital Collections - Civil War diaries, county atlases, family genealogies, biographies and high school yearbooks are just some of the digitized items you can view from Hawkeye State libraries, museums and historical societies.
Kansas
Kansas Memory - This collection from the Kansas Historical Society has more than 741,000 images, including photographs, letters, diaries, books and interviews with WWII veterans.
Kentucky
Kentucky Historical Society - In addition to finding aids, this collection includes digitized letters, journals, wills, business records, oral histories and maps.
Louisiana
Louisiana Digital Library - With contributions from archives, libraries and museums, this collection includes more than 400,000 digital items, including city directories, oral histories, photographs and maps. You’ll even find letters and diaries of Union soldiers serving in Louisiana.
Maine
DigitalMaine Repository - The result of a partnership between the Maine State Library, the Maine State Archives, and libraries, historical societies and museums across the state, this site has digitized genealogy research, church records, maps and more. The Maine Newspaper Project has newspapers dating from 1769 to 2022.
Maine Memory Network - A project of the Maine Historical Society, this site has over 45,000 letters, journals, photos and more.
Maryland
Digital Maryland - Digitized items from libraries, historical societies and museums across the state include African American funeral programs, Civil War records, diaries, oral histories and lists of the enslaved.
Maryland State Archives - provides access to historical documents, including court and land records, Civil War rosters, Colonial probate records and certificates of freedom. “Early Settlers of Maryland” covers 17th-century immigrants, and the “Legacy of Slavery Database” covers over 400,000 enslavers, those enslaved, and free people from 1830 to 1880.
Massachusetts
Digital Commonwealth - Explore photos, manuscripts, audio recordings and other historical items from libraries, museums and archives across Massachusetts.
Michigan
Michigan Biographical Index - James N. Jackson created this terrific finding aid, which indexes names from more than a thousand Michigan publications and manuscripts. You’ll find many of them online.
Michiganology - Search death certificates from 1897 to 1952, and view images of certificates older than 75 years. Other digitized collections include Michigan state census records from 1827 to 1894 and maps from 1810 to 1970.
Western Michigan Genealogical Society - These indexes cover 3.67 million names in newspapers, church records, veterans’ home records and more. Some records are online, and you can request copies of others for a small fee.
Minnesota
Minnesota Digital Library - Search more than 58,000 photos, postcards, maps, documents, letters, diaries and oral histories from libraries, historical societies and museums.
Mississippi
Mississippi Digital Library - Libraries, colleges and historical and genealogical societies contributed scrapbooks, letters, photographs, books, oral histories and the large collection of family histories digitized on this site.
Missouri
Missouri State Archives - Extensive resources on this site include court, land, naturalization and prison records, plus death certificates from 1910 to 1973, abstracts of birth and death records before 1910, and 850,000 photos.
The State Historical Society of Missouri Digital Collections - This site boasts diaries, plat maps, photographs, oral histories, Civil War letters, slavery documents, funeral records and more. It also links to the Digital Newspaper Project.
Montana
Montana Historical Society - access to 100,000 digitized yearbooks, letters, diaries and prison records. Click on “Digitized Montana Newspapers” to search newspapers for free on Chronicling America and other sites.
Nebraska
History Nebraska - History Nebraska offers a bumper crop of resources. Search the Atlases and Plat Books index, a collection on Civil War veterans, prison records from 1870 to 1990, and more.
Nevada
Nevada Library Cooperative - This site has scores of items, including territorial census records (1861–1864), state land patents and records of prisoners and orphans. You’ll also find newspapers, oral histories and yearbooks.
New Hampshire
New Hampshire Genealogy & History - Janice Webster Brown’s encyclopedic guide to genealogy and history includes maps, photographs and local histories, all about the Granite State.
New Jersey
New Jersey State Archives - Click Read More under Searchable Databases and Records Request Forms to access indexes to marriage records (1666–1799, 1848–1900), indexes to death records (1848–1900) and more. The indexes cover more than 1.5 million documents and photographs
New Mexico
New Mexico's Digital Collections - This site provides access to digitized manuscripts (including handwritten genealogies), as well as photographs, oral histories and maps from libraries and museums.
New York
New York Heritage Digital Collections - This collection includes photographs, letters, diaries, city directories, maps, yearbooks and more. Several oral history collections include interviews with immigrants.
The NYC Historical Vital Records Project - The New York City Municipal Archives is providing free access to 13.3 million vital records, including records of birth (1855–1909), marriage (1866–1937) and death (1862–1948); coverage varies by borough. As of early 2024, the digitization project was 76% complete.
DigitalNC - Drawing on materials from 340 libraries, museums and archives across North Carolina, this collection includes city directories, genealogies, local histories, yearbooks, family Bibles, newspapers and photographs.
North Carolina
North Carolina Digital Collections - A joint project of the State Archives and the State Library, this site has more than 158,000 items, including digitized Confederate pension applications, naturalization records and newspapers back to 1751. The Family Records collection has Bible records, marriage and death notices, and cemetery records.
University of North Carolina: The Southern Historical Collection - This collection includes many family papers—some dating back to the 17th century—plus diaries, Civil War reminiscences, slave records and genealogies.
North Dakota
Digital Horizons - Town and county histories, photos of homesteaders and oral interviews conducted with Germans from Russia, are just a few of this site’s treasures depicting life in the Peace Garden State.
Northern Mariana Islands
Northern Mariana Islands Genealogy - Bob Jenkins compiled these resources, including links to birth, marriage and death records, obituaries and cemetery records, for researching your family history in this Pacific Island territory
Ohio
Ohio Memory - The Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio coordinated contributions to this site from over 390 cultural heritage institutions across the state. The site now has more than 1.6 million digital images, including yearbooks, diaries, letters, county atlases, photos of Civil War officers, and newspapers.
Oklahoma
Digital Prairie - If your Sooner ancestors fought in the Civil War, check out the digitized Confederate pension cards and applications. Other resources include photos, postcards, school yearbooks and government documents dating back to the territorial days.
The Gateway to Oklahoma History - Through this site, the Oklahoma Historical Society provides access to thousands of historical newspapers, photographs, maps and documents.
Oregon
Oregon Digital - A collaborative effort of the University of Oregon Libraries and the Oregon State University Libraries, this site has photo albums, diaries, and manuscript family histories.
The Oregon Historical Society Digital Collections - This site features photos, letters and a large collection of oral history interviews.
Pennsylvania
State Library of Pennsylvania Collections - From the home page, click Digital Collections > State Library Digital Collections to find the Pennsylvania Genealogy Collection, county histories, historical newspapers and Civil War regimental histories.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico Genealogy - Extensive links on this site for searching the Puerto Rican records on FamilySearch more efficiently. For example, you can jump directly to the church records for a particular parish and year.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries - More than just an index to gravestones, this site includes dates of birth and death, names of family members (in the Notes section), maps and sometimes even detailed descriptions and photos of gravestones.
South Carolina
South Carolina Department of Archives and History - Online collections include Confederate pension applications, will transcripts and militia lists. Find a guide at Research and Genealogy > Digital Collections, or click Online Records Index to search.
The South Carolina Digital Library - Access over 205,000 digitized items, including books, photos, manuscripts, family Bible records, maps, diaries, oral histories and yearbooks. Collections include Civil War-era letters and the WPA Federal Writers’ Project on African American life in South Carolina.
South Dakota
South Dakota State Historical Society - From Archives > Digital Archives, search photos, manuscripts and land surveys. From Archives > Collections Indexes, find military records, newspapers, the 1870 agricultural census, fire insurance maps, and more.
Tennessee
Nashville Public Library Digital Collections - Search and view digital images of photos, manuscripts, wills, diaries and Civil-War era letters, and listen to oral history clips.
Tennessee Virtual Archive - The Tennessee State Library and Archives digitized photographs, maps, Civil War records and soldiers’ photographs, vital records, diaries and other items for this beautiful online collection.
Texas
The Portal to Texas History - Libraries, archives and historical and genealogical societies contributed digitized books, maps and photos for this site. Among the 2.1 million items, you’ll find yearbooks, church records, county histories and newspapers dating from 1813 to the present.
Utah
Utah State Archives Name Indexes - You can view county registers of birth for many Utah counties from 1898 to 1905 and statewide indexes to 20th-century births and deaths. Other county resources include naturalization and probate records. Images of some records are online.
Vermont
Vermont History - Click on Genealogy Lists & Indexes for links to PDF files with indexes and transcriptions of various records, including baptisms, marriages, deaths and town records.
Virgin Islands
The Danish West-Indies - Search five million records, including census records, parish registers, slave lists and military records.
Virginia
Library of Virginia - Under For Researchers, click on Search the LVA Catalog to search many digital collections at once, including Confederate pension rolls, land grants and wills. Also under For Researchers, click Virginia Memory > Virginia Chronicle to search over a million newspaper pages from 1787 to 2022.
Washington
Washington Rural Heritage - Drawing on the collections of small, rural libraries and historical societies, this site has scrapbooks, oral interviews, old photographs and more.
Washington State Archives — Digital Archives - This huge index of almost 89 million records covers births, marriages, and deaths, plus land, military, naturalization and other records. Images of many of them are online.
Washington DC
DigDC - The DC Public Library created this digital collection of maps, photos, oral histories, plat books and historical newspapers.
West Virginia
West Virginia Archives and History - Click “Births, Deaths and Marriages” to search birth, marriage and death records, some dating to the 1700s. (Coverage varies by county.)
Wisconson
Recollection Wisconsin - Search church records, military records, county histories, city directories, newspapers, yearbooks and more from libraries, archives, historical societies and museums.
Wisconsin Historical Society - This search covers more than 3 million records, including indexes to birth, marriage and death records, plus obituaries, biographies and photos.
Wyoming
Wyoming Digital Newspaper Collection - Search more than 4.8 million pages of Wyoming newspapers back to 1849