Missouri Archives and Libraries

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Local Research Resources

Archives & Libraries Societies Find a FamilySearch center

United States

U.S. Archives and Libraries

Missouri

Archives and Libraries

These archives, libraries, societies, and museums preserve sources, maintain indexes, and provide services to help genealogists document their ancestors who lived in Missouri.

Online Recorces

• State Historical Society of Missouri Digital Collections, index

Missouri Online Genealogy Records

Links to online databases and indexes that may include vital records, biographies, cemeteries, censuses, histories, immigration records, land records, maps, military records, naturalizations, newspapers, obituaries, or probate records.

Wiki Articles on Major Repositories in Missouri

National Archives I, Washington DC · National Archives at Kansas City · National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) · Missouri Bureau of Vital Records · Missouri History Museum Library · Missouri State Archives · Missouri State Genealogical Association · State Historical Society of Missouri · Kansas City Public Library Missouri Valley Special Collections · Ozarks Genealogical Society Library · St. Louis County Library · St. Louis Mercantile Library · St. Louis Public Library · Springfield-Greene County Library Center · Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Library · Harrison County Historical Museum TX · Newberry Library, Chicago IL

National

Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center
3440 S. Lee's Summit Road
Independence, MO 64055-1923
Telephone: 816-836-5200
Fax: 816-521-7253
Website

One of America's most complete genealogical centers including censuses and indexes, 80,000 family histories, 100,000 local histories, 565,000 microfilms, 7,000 maps, and newspapers. Surrounding states are well represented.</ref> The Mid-Continent Public Library shares its genealogical materials through interlibrary loan.

National Archives I
700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC
Telephone: 1-866-272-6272
Fax: 301-837-0483
Website
Email

Nationwide censuses, pre-WWI military service and pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, federal bounty land, homesteads, bankruptcy, ethnic sources, prisons, and federal employees. The National Archives Building in Washington, DC (Archives I), houses textual and microfilm records relating to genealogy, American Indians, pre-World War II military and naval-maritime matters, the New Deal, the District of Columbia, the Federal courts, and Congress.

National Archives at Kansas City
400 West Pershing Road
Kansas City, MO 64108
Telephone: 816-268-8000
Website

The National Archives at Kansas City, Missouri has the records of regional federal offices for Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, including the following:

• Federal naturalization records including A-files
• Bureau of Indian Affairs and other American Indian records
• Copies of federal census, military, federal land records, and immigration records
• Specialties include frontier and territorial history, and American Indians of the Northern Great Plains.
  
  

National Personnel Records Center (NPRC)
1 Archives Drive
St. Louis, MO 63138
Telephone: 314-801-0800
Fax: 314-801-9195
Email: MPR.center@nara.gov
Internet: National Personnel Records Center

The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis is part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It is the central repository for both the military and civil services personnel-related records. It maintains military personnel records for servicemen and servicewomen discharged from 1912 to 1952* (*i.e. 62 years after discharge). Use Standard Form SF-180 to order files. Records prior to WWI are in Washington, D.C.

State

Missouri Bureau of Vital Records
912 Wildwood (P.O. Box 570)
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0570
Telephone: 573-751-6387
Website
Email

Central registry of Missouri births and deaths since 1910; marriages and divorces since 1948.

The State Historical Society of Missouri Digital
Research Centers: Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Kansas City, Rolla, St. Louis, and Springfield
Website

They provide online access to journals, photographs, newspapers, and oral histories telling the story of Missouri’s history, people, and culture.

Missouri History Museum Library
225 South Skinker Blvd (P.O. Box 11940)
St. Louis, MO 63112-0040
Telephone: 314-746-4500
Fax: 314-746-4548
Website
Email
Email

They have an excellent collection about early Missouri settlers and immigrants through Illinois, 90,000 books, periodicals, St. Louis newspapers, fire insurance maps, city directories, St. Louis people, western fur trade, and Missouri history. The library has an online genealogy index. Copies of records can also be ordered online.

Missouri State Archives
600 West Main Street (P.O. Box 1747)
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Telephone: 314-751-3280
Fax: 573-526-7333
Website
Email

The usage of "Mormon" and "LDS" on this page is approved according to current policy.

Original county records on microfilm. Research, Online Resources, Featured Collections, and Guides

Note: Records kept at the state capitol were lost by fires in 1837 and 1911. Several counties in Missouri have also lost records due to fire, war, and other destruction.

Missouri State Genealogical Association
P.O. Box 833
Columbia, MO 65205-0833
Website
Email

Sponsors events, conferences, Missouri First Families certificates, newsletters, a blog, MoSGA's Journal, researchers, speakers, research links, and annual awards. The MoSGA collection is part of the Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence MO.

Surname Databases four databases with over 113,800 names.
MoSGA blog.

State Historical Society of Missouri
University of Missouri Ellis Library
1020 Lowry Street
Columbia, Missouri, 65201-7298
Telephone: 573-882-1187
Fax: 573-884-4950
Website
Email

Historical and genealogical collections include with historic Missouri manuscripts and reference books, collection of 460,000 books, 500,000 manuscripts, 150,000 archival records, 2,900 maps, databases, art, census records, digital collections, newspapers, oral history, and photographs. This Society has research centers at Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Kansas City, Rolla, St. Louis, and Springfield.

Regional

The usage of "Mormon" and "LDS" on this page is approved according to current policy.

Kansas City Public Library Missouri Valley Special Collections
Central Library
14 W. 10th Street, 5th Floor
Kansas City, MO 64105
Telephone: 816-701-3427
Fax: 816-701-3401
Website
Email

The Missouri Valley Room has a great genealogy collection for Missouri and Kansas with biographies, periodicals, genealogies, diaries, photos, scrapbooks, and newspapers of the Kansas City area.[2] [3] Jackson County births 1883-1895, marriage indexes 1827-1937, deaths 1874-1909.[4] They also hold papers, postcards, newspaper clippings, city directories, maps, school yearbooks, and ephemera from local individuals and organizations to document the history and development of the Kansas City area including some material from the Kansas City School District. They provide information on vital records research, adoption search resources, how-to-do obituary searching, African Americans, American Indians, the American Civil War, explorers, Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Overland Trail.[3] Librarians began collecting genealogical materials almost from the beginning of the Library, but in 1933, a donation of the vast personal genealogical library of lumber baron John Barber White greatly enhanced the collection. Resources continued to be added. Of note are the many now out-of-print nineteenth-century histories of counties in the Midwest, specific family histories, and many genealogical periodicals beginning in the late 1800s.

Great genealogy collection for the Missouri Valley with biographies, periodicals, genealogies, diaries, photos, scrapbooks, and newspapers of KC area.

Ozarks Genealogical Society Library
534 West Catalpa (PO Box 3945)
Springfield, Missouri 65808
Telephone: 417-831-2773
Website
Email

OGS has substantial genealogy for southern Missouri, Missouri in general, other states, a large collection of genealogical periodicals, maps, family histories, and over one dozen special collections compiled by area researchers. Special Collections records focus on family histories with an emphasis in the southwest Missouri geographical area.

St. Louis County Library
Emerson History & Genealogy
Clark Family Branch
2nd Floor
1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd
St Louis, MO 63131-3598
Telephone: 314-994-3300
Website
Email

The St. Louis County Library genealogical collection has 85,000 print items, 9,500 family histories, 850 periodical titles, 40,000 microfilm rolls, and many electronic databases. Their emphasis is on St. Louis, Missouri, and states and foreign countries that fed migration into Missouri, including New England states, the 13 colonies, and many foreign countries. Military history, African American, and other ethnic sources are well represented. Record types include online databases, federal censuses, births, marriages, deaths, cemeteries, church records, military records, naturalizations, newspapers, wills, African American records, and yearbooks.[2]

Significant miscellaneous items include 850 microfilms from parish registers of the Swiss Canton of Bern, over 100 Jewish Yizkor books, and sources for Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New England, and some rare English, Welsh, and Scottish genealogies.[4]

Their collection includes holdings from the National Genealogical Society, St. Louis Genealogical Society, African American Research Collection, Jewish Genealogical Society, parish records from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and the Archdiocese of Belleville, Illinois.

St. Louis Mercantile Library
University of Missouri - St. Louis
Thomas Jefferson Library Building
One University Blvd.
St. Louis, Missouri 63121-4400
Telephone: 314-516-7240 or 314-516-7247
Fax: 314-516-7241
Website
Email

The University of Missouri St. Louis Mercantile Library has collections that concentrate on Westward Expansion, American rail and river transportation history as well as the history, development, and growth of the St. Louis region, and broadly developed subjects related to the humanities, with a core collection numbering over 250,000 books. The special collections of the library consist of over 400 individual collections with archival materials numbering in the millions, including over 100 historic newspaper titles, presidential letters, early travel diaries and civil war era letters, fur trade records and the newspaper and printing morgue of the St. Louis Globe Democrat.[2] The Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library focuses on United States river and inland waterways history. It has 2,500 books and a large pictorial/photographic collection.[3] The John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library is one of the largest (45,000 volumes) and finest railroad history collections focused on railway economics, finance, corporate history, management practice, regulatory history, mergers, labor relations, operations, and engineering.[4]

A premier library for Missouri research.

St. Louis Public Library (City)
Central Library
1301 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
Telephone: 314-241-2288
Website
Email

They have an on-line Obituary Index for the years 1880–1927; 1942–1945; 1992–2006, family histories, passenger lists, Heritage Quest, and Gateway Family Historian publication.

Springfield-Greene County Library Center
The Library Center
4653 S. Campbell Ave.
Springfield, MO 65810-1723
Telephone: 417-616-0534
Fax: 417-883-9348
Website
Email

The Springfield-Greene County Library Center collection for southern Missouri includes censuses 1830-1930, access to subscription databases like Ancestry, HeritageQuest, and Fold3, church histories, directories 1878-2006, online deaths 1910-1964, online deeds 1833-1877, online Greene county histories, births, marriages, probate, local newspapers 1881-2006, maps, fire insurance maps, plat books, 53 active and 40 inactive genealogical periodicals, high school and college yearbooks, photos of landmarks, and cemetery transcripts. In addition, they have material on the effects of the Civil War on Greene County. The Lena Wills professional genealogist and columnist collection is found here. The Native American collection includes tribes of Missouri, the Dawes Rolls, the Guion Miller Rolls, and other Cherokee sources.

Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Library
6424 West Farm Road 182
Republic, MO 65738
Telephone:417-732-2662

Website
Email

All of the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Library's 10,000 volumes are non-circulating, but are available for use on-site. The collection focuses on the American Civil War period, especially on the Trans-Mississippi Theater. The library has many regimental histories and adjutant general reports mostly for the Union side.[2]

This library can help genealogists find ancestors who served in the American Civil War, and learn more about that war in Missouri. They have access to the National Park Service's 6.3 million name database online called the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. They also have microfilm copies of the Compiled Service Records for all Union and Confederate soldiers from Missouri, and those from other states who fought at Wilson's Creek.

Outside Missouri

Harrison County Historical Museum
Old Harrison County Courthouse
117 East Bowie (P.O. Box 1987)
Marshall, Texas 75671
Telephone: 903-938-2680
Website
Email

A key repository for locating selected early Missouri and Texas settlers. This was a center for Missouri Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. It has a great collection of family folders, books, letters, diaries, journals, and surname lists.

Miami, Oklahoma also has significant association with southern Missouri heritage and genealogy.

Newberry Library
60 West Waltron Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Telephone: 312-255-3512
Newberry
Website
Email

Over 17,000 printed genealogies. Their collection is strong for colonial America, especially New England, including local histories from all over the United States, Canada, and Britain. Outstanding county history collection for the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. The Civil War collection is one of the best in America.

FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries

Cass County Public Library
400 East Mechanic St
Harrisonville, MO 64701
Dade County Library
209 S Main
Greenfield, MO 65661
Dunklin County Library
209 North Main St.
Kennett, MO 63857
Jefferson County Library
5680 State Road PP
High Ridge, MO 63049
https://jeffcolibrary.org/ Kathryn Linnemann Branch Library
2323 Elm St
St. Charles, MO 63301
Keller Public Library
402 West Grant St
Dexter, MO 63841
Mid-Continent Public Library
3440 S Lee's Summit Road
Independence, MO 64055
Nevada Public Library
212 W Walnut St
Nevada, MO 64772
Perry County Genealogical Family Research Library and Archive Center
108 South Progress Dr
Perryville, MO 63775
Saint Joseph Public Library
927 Felix St.
St Joseph, MO 64501
Springfield-Greene County Library
4653 S Campbell
Springfield, MO 65810
St Charles City-County Library
77 Boone Hills Drive
St Peters, MO 63376
St Joseph Public Library
927 Felix St
St Joseph, MO 64501
St Louis County Library
1640 S Lindbergh Blvd
St Louis, MO 63131-3598
St Louis Public Library - Central Library
1415 Olive Street
St Louis, MO 63103
The Library Station/Springfield-Greene County Library
2535 N Kansas Expressway
Springfield, MO 65803
Trails Regional Library
432 N Holden
Warrensburg, MO 64093
White River Valley Historical Society
297 Main St
Forsyth, MO 65653

National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.