Resources for Your Genealogy Research in Wisconsin

Where to Look? How to Find It?

The United States acquired Wisconsin in the Treaty of Paris (1783). Massachusetts claimed the territory east of the Mississippi River between the present-day Wisconsin-Illinois border and present-day La Crosse, Wisconsin. Virginia claimed the territory north of La Crosse to Lake Superior and all of present-day Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. Shortly afterward, in 1787, the Americans made Wisconsin part of the new Northwest Territory. Later, in 1800, Wisconsin became part of Indiana Territory. Despite the fact that Wisconsin belonged to the United States at this time, the British continued to control the local fur trade and maintain military alliances with Wisconsin Indians.

Wisconsin Territory was created by an act of the United States Congress on April 20, 1836. The new territory initially included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota. At the time the Congress called it the "Wiskonsin Territory". All the lands of Wisconsin Territory west of the Mississippi River were transferred to Iowa Territory in 1838.

Wisconsin became the 30th state on May 29, 1848. It was the last state entirely east of the Mississippi River (and by extension the last state formed entirely from territory assigned to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) to be admitted to the Union.

There are many places to search for answers to your Wisconsin genealogy questions. If you know what is available, you can make much better use of your time and effort in finding out all you can about your Wisconsin ancestors in the US. Here is where to start some of your searching.

We have gathered together lists of those resources we are aware of for the most common resources, and also some of the less common places to look for information about your family. So, help yourself to the information below, and go hunting.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is responsible for Wisconsin Vital Records Services

Wisconsin Historical Society provides this page to search over 3,000,000 records including: birth, death and marriage record indexes; newspaper clippings; photographs and other visual materials; and property records from National Register and State Register of Historic Places and the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory (AHI).

There are further genealogy resources available listed here from the Milwaukee County Historical Society

Here is the LDS Wiki page for Wisconsin genealogy information

The US GenWeb project has specific state projects as part of it. Here is the Wisconsin GenWeb site

It Helps When You Know Where to Look!