Mississippi Genealogy & Mississippi Family History Resources (2024)

• Major Native American Tribes of Mississippi include the Natchez on the lower Mississippi, the Chickasaw in the north and northeast, and the Choctaw in the central and southern parts.
• At various times throughout history Mississippi has been under the jurisdiction of France, Spain, Britain, and the United States.
• Biloxi is the oldest permanent settlement in the Lower Mississippi Valley, established in 1699. Natchez was founded in 1716 and is the oldest city on the Mississippi River.
  

• Mississippi Family History Research
• Counties of Mississippi
• Research in the Deep South
• Why Southern Research Is Different, Part Iand Part II
• The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

Mississippi Census Research

Federal censuses began for the state of Mississippi in 1820 and continued every ten years thereafter. Some records are incomplete, including 1830 (missing Pike County) and 1860 (missing Hanco*ck, Sunflower, and Washington counties).

Some pre-statehood censuses of Mississippi Territory were taken at different intervals from 1798 until 1817. An early census of the Natchez District taken in 1792 from the Spanish provincial records has been printed in Dunbar Rowland, History of Mississippi, The Heart of the South, 4 vols. (Chicago: S. J. Clark Publishing Co., 1925). Other censuses from the Spanish colonial period (1784, 1787, 1788, and 1794) can be found in the Papeles Procedentes de Cuba (The Cuban Papers) located at the General Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. See Roscoe R. Hill, Descriptive Catalogue of the Documents Relating to the History of the United States in the Papeles Procedentes de Cuba (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1916).

By law, the state of Mississippi was not required to keep birth or death certificates until 1 November 1912.

• Mississippi State Department of Health – Office of Vital Records: Holds records of births and deaths from 1912 and marriages from January 1, 1926 to June 30, 1938, and for January 1, 1942 to present.Marriage records may also be requested from the Circuit Court Clerk in the county where the marriage license was issued.Divorce records are held by the Chancery Clerk in the county where the decree was issued. Contact information for county clerks is provided on the website.
• Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH): The Archives holds Mississippi death records (on microfiche) from November 1912 to 1943.

Mississippi Research Resources

The organizations listed below provide information about Mississippi history and genealogy.In addition to these state-level resources, many counties and towns maintain important genealogical collections in local libraries, genealogical societies, or historical societies, so check for a local resource when researching.

Statewide Research Resources

• Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH): The Genealogy page contains information on research at the Archives.
• Mississippi Historical Society
• Mississippi GenWeb
• The National Archives at Atlanta: This facility maintains records from Federal agencies and courts in Mississippi, including census, military, court, naturalization, and immigration records.
• Bureau of Land Management (BLM) General Land Office Records:The BLM administers Federal Land for public land states including Mississippi, and maintains records of land patents which granted land from the Federal Government to individuals.Use the Land Patent Search to locate land grants by name.Many record images are available on the web site.See the FAQ for more information on how to locate and use land patents.