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New
Visitor Information: You are on the path to discovering ALL available Madison County
official records directly related to genealogy -
births, marriages, deaths and burials. The one
exception, due to a concern for privacy, is that
only births and marriages older than 100 years
old are included, but are updated annually.
The
menu to the left will lead you to an abundance
of genealogical records. The most popular
links are BIRTH RECORDS, CEMETERIES (over 30,000
burials), MARRIAGE RECORDS, and OBITUARY INDEX
(over 35,000 entries). Also spend time in
CENSUS RECORDS for transcriptions of the Federal
Census from 1850 through 1930, the Iowa State
Census from 1849 through 1895 plus the
informative 1925 census, and the Composite
Census Index there. Then check out all the
other links in the menu and throughout this page
to round out your family’s Madison County
history.
Here
are two other helpful hints. Use the SEARCH box
to the right to find references to a name,
surname, place, etc. across all the information
entered on this website. And don’t miss
the MADISON COUNTY FAMILY TREE in the lower
left, where 90,000+ individuals are connected
with their Madison County families.
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What's
New
Daily
Updates: The County Coordinator, along
with several members of the Madison County Genealogical
Society are working daily on obituaries, cemetery
records, marriage records, birth records, headstone
photos, newspaper gleanings, the Madison County Family
Tree, and other research
pertaining to Madison County. This results in many daily updates of this
website. If we were to list each change we have made
over the past six months, you would have to plow through
well over 100 pages of change documentation. However, we
have elected to post complete data sets for your perusal
as they are generated. See "1919 Madison County
Marriages" and "1919 Madison County Births" below to access new data sets.
If you visited this
website before and didn't find your relative's
information, we urge you to look again and to look each
time you visit here. In the period from Apr 2020 thru
Sep 2020, we have posted 475 new obituaries and added
alternate obituaries to 255 already on line. Finally, cemetery
records are regularly updated to reflect the most recent
burials. Listed
below are some of the highlights of What's New in the 12
months between October 01, 2019 and September 30, 2020.
And one more thing...2020
has seen the website achieve two
milestones, 35,000 obituaries on line and over
a half million website visitors from 56 countries.
Modified
Obituaries - The posting of ”Alternate” obituaries (a new
obituary different from one already posted) has been
dropped in favor of immediately appending the new
obituary to the existing one and providing a link in a
list titled "Recently
Modified Obituaries". The combined
obituaries will also be available through the Obituaries
Index. Recently Modified Obituaries are accessible
through the “Obits” link on the right and will
remain on that list for one year. (Posted
12 Apr 2020)
1919
Madison County Marriages - The complete set of
Madison County marriages for calendar year 1919, comprised
of 166 records, have
been posted to our Marriage List as of September 30,
2020. To
see the list of 1919 marriages, click here.
To see them integrated with all marriages, select "Marriage
Records" on the left.
1919
Madison County Births - The complete set of
Madison County births for calendar year 1919, comprised
of 293 records, have
been posted to our birth pages as of March 31, 2020. To
see the list of 1919 births, click here.
To see them integrated with all births, select "Birth
Records" on the left.
Winterset
News Obituaries:
Most of the obituaries currently on line came from a
collection of clippings from the Winterset Madisonian
held by the Winterset Library. With the recent
availability of all Madison County newspapers on line,
we have initiated a project to glean the Winterset News
of obituaries not found in the Madisonian as well as
obituaries with significantly new information. The
former are being posted as new obituaries and the latter
in our list of Recently Modified Obituaries. As of
September 31, 2020, fourteen sets of The Winterset News
have been gleaned comprising calendar years 1919 through
1932.
Obituary
Photos: Recently
we were fortunate to receive a collection of obituary
photos from Ochiltree Funeral Home (now Caldwell
Parrish). We received photos for calendar years 2005
through 2013 and have completed appending photos to our
obituary postings for years 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 and
2012.
Vigilantes
- If
you thought that vigilantes died out with the old west,
not so. In the early 1920s, Iowa bankers, tired of
numerous armed robberies, organized Vigilante Committees
in all 99 counties, mostly to have readily accessible
trained posse members. An article regarding Madison
County's vigilantes appeared in the Winterset News which
has been posted under documents.
There is also a link there that provides more
information about the statewide program. (Posted
08 Apr 2020)
Random
Birth Records - As a part of routine
maintenance of the website as well as special projects,
we may run across Madison County births not found in the
official birth records that either haven't been included
or for which additional information has been uncovered. They may come from other
county's state census records, marriage records,
obituaries, death records,
Social Security Applications or Draft Registrations.
These random records or record changes are accumulated and posted to the
website every 6 months. Birth records accumulated in the
6 months ending 30 Sep 2020 have been integrated into
our Birth records and also posted here as a separate
list. (Posted 30 Sep
2020)
1925
Iowa State Census: As you may
know, the 1925 Iowa State Census is the Holy Grail of
censuses because it contains not only the names of all
the county’s citizens but also their parent’s names,
places of birth, and place of marriage. Although the
census is accessible on line, there is presently no
index and finding your relative is dependent on how well
the enumerator spelled their name and how well the
transcriber deciphered it for the transcription. And, if
you want to find them on the actual census images, there
is virtually no guidance to doing so. A project to
provide the 1925 Madison County Census, fully indexed,
on this website, has been initiated. As of 12 Dec 2019,
the entire transcription has been posted although half
of Webster Township and all of Winterset are still
subject to proofreading. Based on proofreading completed
to date (80% of the full census), it is unlikely that
the remaining proofreading will materially change
the data. The index has been completed and can be accessed here.
Madison
County Family Tree Update - The
Madison County Family Tree is now hosted by RootsMagic
Online and will be updated weekly. It holds the
same information as the previous Family Tree although
the format is new and different. Please take time
to visit the Help screen to become familiar with the
site. The previous family tree was hosted by RootsWeb
which was taken over by Ancestry a few years ago. Since
that time, our weekly updates have not been shown. This
new Family Tree hosted by RootsMagic contains 18+ months
of updates, so you may find some helpful family
information. (Posted
08 Apr
2019)
Gravestone
Photos: All gravestones in Madison County
have been photographed and posted at the Iowa Gravestones Project.
Fifty-eight newly placed gravestones in the period 01
Apr 2020 to 30 Sep 2020 have been photographed and posted. A list of
the new postings can be seen in
a separately compiled list
of new Gravestone Photo postings.
Current
Contributors: Maintenance and
improvement of this website would be impossible without
the continued support of volunteer contributors. Special
thanks go to Pat Hochstetler who has worked tirelessly
in transcribing older obituaries along with new
obituaries as well as
photographing gravestones. Over the past year, Eileen Reed
has submitted many obituaries and family photos which
are greatly appreciated. And finally, thanks go to Shirley
Keating who works on current obituaries and Ida Morse
who works on gravestone photos.
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