Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy

United States Indiana Monroe County

Guide to Monroe County Indiana genealogy. Birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Monroe County, Indiana
Map
Location of Indiana in the U.S.
Facts
Founded	January 14, 1818
County Seat	Bloomington
Courthouse
Address	Monroe County Courthouse 100 W 5th St; PO Box 547 Bloomington, IN 47402-0547 Phone: 812.349.2600 Website
Template:Adoption Indiana Genealogical Society

Historical Facts

Beginning dates for major county records
Birth	Marriage	Death	Land	Probate
1882*	1818*	1886*	1817	1818
*For earlier dates, try... Church | Obituaries | Cemeteries

• Parent Counties: Formed from Orange County 14 January 1818.
  
• County Seat: Bloomington
  
• Neighboring Counties: Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy residents may also have records in
  Owen (northwest) · Morgan (north) · Brown (east) · Jackson (southeast) · Lawrence (south) · Greene (west)
  

Resources

Cemeteries

Cemetery records often reveal birth, marriage, death, relationship, military, and religious information.

Online Grave Transcripts	Published Grave Transcripts	County Cemetery Directories
Findagrave.com	Family History Library	Findagrave.com
Interment.net	WorldCat	Names in Stone
USGenWeb		Billion Graves
Billion Graves		Epodunk
Names in Stone		Genealogy Trails

See Indiana Cemeteries for more information.

• Cemeteries for Monroe County - Linkpendium
  [1]

Census Records

For tips on accessing Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy census records online, see: Indiana Census.

• Index to Mortality Schedule for Monroe County (1860) ($, Indiana Genealogical Society)
• Index to Defective, Dependent & Delinquent Census for Monroe County (1880) ($, Indiana Genealogical Society)
• Index to Census of Males for Clear Creek Township, Monroe County (1919) ($, Indiana Genealogical Society)

Church Records

Most church records are held by individual churches. For contact information, check a phone directory, such as SearchBug or Dex Knows. Some denominations are gathering their records into a central repository. For more information about these major repositories, see Indiana Church Records.

For more information about these major repositories, see Indiana Church Records.

Finding More Church Records

Additional church records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy Church Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).

Court Records

• Index to Court Records for Monroe County (1818-1875) (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)

Local Histories

Local histories are available for Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy. County histories may include biographies; church, school and government histories; and military information.

• Blanchard, Charles. Counties of Morgan, Monroe, and Brown, Indiana. Historical and Biographical. (Chicago: F.A. Battey Co, 1884.) 977.2 H2b FHL US/CAN Book FHL Collectionother libraryINTERNET ARCHIVE

• History of Monroe County - Linkpendium
• Monroe County History - USGenWeb
• Monroe County, Indiana, Family Heritage Book, published by the Monroe County Historical Society in 1987.Contains an every-name index.
• Monroe County, Indiana, Family Heritage Book, published by the Monroe County History Center in 2007.Contains an every-name index. Material does not overlap with the book by the same name published in 1987.
• Index to History of Harrodsburg (1964) (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)
• Index to History of Stinesville (1955) (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)

For more information about local histories, see the wiki page section Indiana Local Histories.

Land and Property

Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts and indexes, mortgages, leases, grants and land patents.

After land was transferred from the government to private ownership, subsequent transactions were recorded at the courthouse, where records are currently housed.

• Earliest Landowners in Monroe County (Indiana Genealogical Society)
• A database index of grantors and grantees from c 1811-1870 is available online from the Monroe County History Center at http://www.monroehistory.org/genealogy_library/land_index.htm.  A hard copy of the index is also available at the facility.
  

See Indiana Land and Property for additional information about early Indiana land grants and patents.

Finding More Land Records

Additional land records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy Probate Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).

Maps

• Maps and Gazetteers - Linkpendium

Military Records

War of 1812

Hopkins, T. M. Reminiscences of Col. John Ketcham of Monroe County, Indiana(Salt Lake City, Utah 1989) pages 23

• Monroe County in the Mexican-American War
• William M. Alexander Civil War Pension File
• List of Pensioners on the Roll January 1, 1883 Monroe County, Indiana (Source: Internet Archive)
• African American Veterans in Monroe County, Indiana (1890) (members only database, Indiana Genealogical Society)
• World War I

1. Gold Star Honor Roll A Record of Indiana Men and Women who Died in World War I - 1914-1918 (Source: Genealogy Trails History Group)
2. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 Monroe County (Source: Explore Ancestry.com) ($)

Civil War

Civil War service men from Monroe County served in various regiments. Men often joined a company (within a regiment) that originated in their county. Listed below are companies that were specifically formed in Monroe County.

• 9th Battery, Indiana Light Artillery
• 10th Regiment, Indiana Cavalry, Company I
• 14th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company K
• 18th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company H
• 22nd Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company I
• 31st Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company G
• 38th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company G
• 50th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company D
• 52nd Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Reorganized Company E
• 54th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company A
• 67th Regiment, Indiana Infantry , Company B
• 82nd Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Companies D, and F
• 93rd Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company F
• 97th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company C
• 110th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company D
• 112th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Company A
• 117th Regiment, Indiana Infantry (6 months, 1863-4), Company I
• 133rd Regiment, Indiana Infantry (100 days, 1864), Company K
• 137th Regiment, Indiana Infantry (100 days, 1864), Company K
• 145th Regiment, Indiana Infantry, Companies A, D, and E
• 28th US Colored Troops, Addition Recruits for Colored Troop

Civil War Books

• "Military History" in Blanchard, Charles. Counties of Morgan, Monroe, and Brown, Indiana. Historical and Biographical. (Chicago: F.A. Battey Co, 1884.) page 413-451, 977.2 H2b FHL US/CAN Book FHL Collection other library INTERNET ARCHIVE

Civil War Databases

• Index to Civil War Soldiers' Discharge Papers (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)
  

World War I

• Index to World War I Soldiers' Discharge Papers (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)
  

World War II

1. Monroe County, Indiana World War II Casualties, Army and Army Air Corps (Source: AccessGenealogy)

• Index to Draft Enrollment List for Monroe County, Indiana (1862) (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)

Newspapers

Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy newspapers may contain genealogical value including obituaries, births, marriages, deaths, anniversaries, family gatherings, family travel, achievements, business notices, engagement information, and probate court proceedings.

• The Genealogy Library at Monroe County History Center at Sixth and Washington in Bloomington has a clipping file containing more than 73,000 clippings from newspapers mostly between 1880 and 1930.These clippings are not available online and overlap only minimally with the clippings archived at Rootsweb listed next.
  

• Many thousands of newspaper clippings, some as early as 1824, are also available in the INMONROE Rootsweb list archive. Select Advanced tab. Enter INMONROE in the "List" query box for clipping index.
  

• The Monroe County Public Library at Bloomington has an online obituary index. Choose "Obituary Index" within the box on the left labeled INDIANA ROOM at . Most of the obits come from a single newspaper.Consequently, if the obit you seek is not found in the index, try one of the other local newspapers from the same date. The index dates from 1824 through the current month.

The Indiana Division of the Indiana State Library has the state’s largest newspaper collection. Their newspaper microfilms are available through inter-library loan. For a county-by-county inventory of their 16,500 reels of Indiana newspaper microfilms, see their Indiana Collection.

Other places to access newspapers are Newspaper Archive ($)(may be free at your local library), public libraries, college or university libraries, the Library of Congress, or Google News.

For more Indiana newspaper information see the wiki page Indiana Newspapers.

Repositories

County Courthouse

Monroe County Courthouse
100 W 5th St; PO Box 547
Bloomington, IN 47402-0547
Phone: 812.349.2600

County clerk has marriage, divorce and
court records from 1818,
probate records from 1831.
County Health Departmenthas birth,
death and burial records from 1882.
County Recorder has land records.

As of a date earlier than August 2012, many of the offices and the records related to the offices in the courthouse are temporarily housed in the Showers Building while the courthouse is under construction.The Clerk's Office is permanently located in the Justice Building at Seventh and College.

Family History Centers

• Bloomington Indiana Family History Center

For additional nearby Family History Centers, search online in the Family History Center directory.

Probate Records

In most counties in Indiana, probate records have been kept by the county clerk of the circuit court. They include wills, fee books, claim registers, legacy records, inheritance records, probate ticklers, and dockets. The records are available at the Monroe County courthouse. For more information, see Indiana Probate Records.

• Index to Will Records for Monroe County (1818-1904) ($, Indiana Genealogical Society)

Finding More Probate Records

Additional probate records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy Probate Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).
• South Bend Area Genealogical Society: Wills Index 1830-1971 for St. Joseph County

Public Records

School Records

• Students and Teachers of Bloomington High School (1913) - Indiana Genealogical Society - $

Taxation

Indiana tax records complement land records and can be used in place of censuses or to supplement the years between censuses. Because only persons who owned taxable property were listed, many residents were not included in tax lists. There may also be gaps of several years in the tax records of some counties. For more information see the wiki page Indiana Taxation.

• Index to Tax Duplicates for Monroe County (1842) (free, Indiana Genealogical Society)

For more information see the wiki page Indiana Taxation.

Finding More Tax Records

Additional tax records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy Tax Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).

Vital Records

Vital records consist of birth, death, marriage and divorce records. Indiana law in 1882 required registration of births and deaths in counties. The Indiana Department of Health has birth records filed after October 1907 and death records filed after January 1900 for deaths. Copies may be obtained from the county health department or the Indiana State Division of Vital Records.

Birth Records

Online Birth Indexes and Records

Original Birth Records on Microfilm

Marriage Records

Online Marriage Indexes and Records

• 1780-1992 - Indiana Marriages FamilySearch- free
  
• 1802-1892 - Indiana Marriages Ancestry.com - at Ancestry $
• 1811-1959 - Indiana Marriages FamilySearch- free
  

Original Marriage Records on Microfilm

Death Records

Online Death Indexes and Records

• 1882-1920 - Indiana, Death Index, 1882-1920-FamilySearch- free
• 1895 - Monroe County Death Index 1895 in International Genealogical Index at FamilySearch - free.
• 1921-1940 Monroe County Deaths
• 1927-1930 - Deaths in the Bloomington Weekly Star - Indiana Genelaogical Society - free
• Indiana State Digital Archives for Death, E-Publication, Institution, Military, Misc Historical, Naturalization Records can be searched by person name (accessed 26 May 2011)
  

Original Death Records on Microfilm

Finding Vital Records at Other Repositories

Additional vital records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy Vital Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).

Web Sites

• USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
• Family History Library Catalog
• Monroe County, Indiana Genealogy and Family History (Linkpendium)
• The Monroe County History Center's website at http://www.monroehistory.org/ has a number of databases and area photographs that contain a wealth of information.
  

Family History Library (FHL); now called, FamilySearch Library (FSL)

This website requires a paid subscription for full access. Some subscription websites are available for free at your local FamilySearch Center or Affiliate Library.

To access available information, first log into FamilySearch.