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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 yellow SEARCH box
to the right to find references to a name,
surname, place, etc. across all the information
entered on this website.
- Don’t miss
the MADISON COUNTY FAMILY TREE where 97,000+ individuals
are grouped with their Madison County families.
The tree icon is on the lower left of this page.
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WHAT'S
NEW
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This website achieved two
significant milestones in 2020:
35,000 obituaries on line and
500,000+ visitors from 57 countries. |
Daily
Updates: The County Coordinators, along
with several members of the Madison County Genealogical
Society are working daily on obituaries, cemetery
records, marriage records, birth records, gravestone
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 "1920 Madison County
Marriages" and "1920 Madison County Births" below to access new
2021 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 2021 thru Sep 2021, we have posted 300 new obituaries and added
alternate obituaries to 200 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 Oct 2020 to Sep
2021.
1920
Madison County Marriages: The complete set of
Madison County marriages for calendar year 1920, comprised
of 262 records, have
been posted to our MARRIAGE
RECORDS as of September 30, 2021.
To
see the list of 1920 marriages, click here.
To see them integrated with all marriages, select
MARRIAGE RECORDS on the left.
1920
Madison County Births: The complete set of
Madison County births for calendar year 1920, comprised
of 372 records, have
been posted to our birth pages as of March 31, 2021. To
see the list of 1920 births, click here.
To see them integrated with all births, select BIRTH
RECORDS on the left. (Posted
31 Mar
2021)
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 2021 have been integrated into
our Birth records and also posted here as a separate
list. (Posted 30 Sep
2021)
Census
Migration Project: All
of the census transcriptions for Madison County have
been migrated to be resident on this website. For
details of this project, click here.
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 completed. As of 05 Dec 2020,
the entire transcription has been proofread and
posted. The index can be accessed here.
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 October
1, 2021, thirty two years of The Winterset News
have been gleaned from 1886 thru 1900 and 1917 through
1933.
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
14 Apr 2021)
Obituary
Photos: 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.
Gravestone
Photos: Nearly 30,000 gravestones in Madison County's
55 cemeteries have been photographed and posted at the Iowa Gravestones Project.
This is a continuous effort as there are new
burials, repaired gravestones, or stones placed on
existing graves. In the period 01 Apr
2021 to 30 Sep 2021, 250 gravestones have been photographed and
posted with attention particularly given to
McGinnis, Peru, and St. Charles cemeteries. A list of
the new postings can be seen in
a separately compiled list
of new Gravestone Photo postings.
Madison
County Family Tree: As of 01 Oct 2021,
this tree holds 97,398 individuals who have a direct
connection to Madison County (without ancestors and
descendants who do not). Continual updates are made from
various sources, such as additions to this website,
vital records encountered in our research, and incoming
obituaries. When first generated, the tree had few
sources. For the past five years, we have been entering
sources for all new entries and as we have occasion to
work with older entries, adding sources for them as
well.
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. From Spring to Fall 2021, a
variety of local genealogists have volunteered
their time to walk cemeteries to gather data to
update documentation and add photos for the Iowa
Gravestones Project in Madison County. In the past year, Eileen Reed
has submitted many obituaries which
are greatly appreciated. And finally, thanks go to Shirley
Keating who works on current obituaries.
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