Ancestry.com (your local library may have a subscription to access additional records on Ancestry.com)
County clerks may also have copies of marriage certificates.
Birth and death certificates
Vital records were only required by governments starting in the late 19th century, so you’ll need to look for family bible records, obituaries, cemetery records, or other types of documentation once you get back a few generations.
Ancestry.com (your local library may have a subscription to access additional records on Ancestry.com)
Ancestry also has them for other states. You can find them by clicking “Search”, then “Card Catalog”. In the keyword box, type the state where the death certificate will be located, plus “wills probate” (for example: “Ohio wills probate”).
Once in the database, you can search wills by name and county, but it will only show the wills. There are many more probate records available to browse.
You need to click on the “Browse this collection” button, search for the county, and then start looking for the probate order books for the year that your ancestor died. Hopefully, there will be an index!
Here’s a short video for you to watch as professional genealogist Michele Kerr (formerly the genealogist for the Society) works her way around the collection:
African-American settlers in Indiana
Indiana Historical Society: Indiana Black Settlements – This resource gives a county-by-county resource listing for help in researching the earliest black settlers in the state of Indiana.
ACPL Genealogy Center, Fort Wayne, IN.Indiana’s African American Settlements. This is a searchable database that is part of a larger study of Indiana’s African American settlements.
The Indiana Junior Historian, Febuary, 1993 issue published by The Indiana Historical Bureau. “Black Settlers in Indiana.” This is a great resource that includes excerpts from some letters written in the 1830’s.
Hoosiers and the American Story, by James H. Madison and Lee Ann Sandweiss; published by the Indiana Historical Society Press in 2014.
County resources
Gore triangle in southeastern corner of Indiana.
This website has indexes available to search by name. There is a fee if you want to retrieve a copy of a document. GREAT RESOURCE for index information!
Ancestry currently does not have any probate records for Montgomery County available online, but I was able to view the Probate records on FamilySearch.org. In this video, I share how I was able to locate it.
This is a section online from Looking at History: Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest Region, 1600 to 1950. It starts with a great history of Native Americans living in Indiana in the 1600s and is an excellent resource to learn more about our pioneer ancestors.
Monroe County Field Notes – Monroe County, Indiana
Monroe County Field Notes is a virtual dig to uncover stories about 19th-century landmarks and people, from 1816-1876. It’s fun and free to get involved and your research will help the Monroe County Library diversify the community’s history!
