Welcome to Madison County IAGenWeb

Madison County is located in the south central part of Iowa. It was established in 1846 and organized in 1849 from a territory within Mahaska County. Madison County has many covered bridges made famous in the book The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. It is also the birthplace of John Wayne and the home of the tree that produced the first "Delicious" apple.  

Daily Updates:  The County Coordinator and 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. If you visited this website before and didn't find your relative's information, we urge you to look again. 

This list is a sample of what has been added  in the last six month, from April 2025 thru September 2025.   Additional details are provided in the next section.

• Marriage Records - 103 marriages for 1924
• Birth Records - 331 births for 1924
• Obituaries - 223 added, 142 recent (most with a photo) and 81 from previous years
• Cemetery Burials -  The most recent interments, based on obituaries
• Gravestone photos -  390 additions or updates
• Family Tree - 519 individuals and 76 families added

New Data Sets and Major Additions:  Below is a description of additional, complete data sets added October 2023 through September 2025. 

1924 Madison County Marriages: The complete set of Madison County marriages for calendar year 1924, comprised of 103 marriages and 212 records, have been posted to our MARRIAGE RECORDS as of September 30, 2025. To see the list of 1924 marriages, click here.  To see them integrated with all marriages, select MARRIAGE RECORDS on the left. (Posted 30 Sep 2025)

1924 Madison County Births: The complete set of Madison County births for calendar year 1924, comprised of 331 records, have been posted to our birth pages as of Mar 31, 2025. To see the list of 1924 births, click here. To see them integrated with all births, select BIRTH RECORDS on the left.  (Posted 10 Mar 2025) 

Madison County Veterans Buried In Iowa Veterans Cemetery: A complete list of these veterans buried in the Iowa Veterans Cemetery, located near Van Meter, is a link near the top of the MILITARY RECORDS page.  These names are generously provided through the work of Connie McDaniel Hall of Dallas County IAGenWeb, who provides occasional updates. (Posted 10 April 2025)

Madison County Land Records: A new menu item, LAND RECORDS, holds links to help you find where your family purchased land when first arriving in Madison County, or the farms or town lots they purchased from others. You can search for original purchases within US land patents or for subsequent transfers within Madison County Recorder Office records. (Posted 13 Sep 2025) 

Madison County Century and Heritage Farms: Also under LAND RECORDS  is a link to the list of Iowa farms held within a family for 100 years (Century Farm) and 150 years (Heritage Farm), as recognized by the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. (Posted 17 Jul 2025) 

Ongoing Projects:  Several efforts require continuous updating or work over multiple years to complete.  Here is updated information on their progress.

Gravestone Photos: Over 32,000 photos have been taken in Madison County's 53 cemeteries and posted at the Iowa Gravestone Project. This is a continuous effort as there are new burials, repaired gravestones, or stones placed on existing graves. In the period from April 2025 thru September 2025, 390 gravestones photos (with GPS coordinates) and transcriptions have been updated. A list of the new postings can be seen in a separately compiled list of new Gravestone Photo postings. (Posted 30 Sep 2025)

Enhanced Gravestone Navigation:  A project has been completed to add a row number link for each of our 30,000+ gravestone photos.  In larger cemeteries, the link also includes a section number.  This link will take you to a cemetery map with the rows marked.  Using this information, a visitor can walk to the row then use the gravestone photo to locate a stone.  Please note that rows are often incomplete or irregular, so searching neighboring rows is suggested.  See a sample here.  (Posted 10 Aug 2025)  

 Civil War Gravestone Project: With collaboration among the Madison County IAGenWeb team, Madison County Genealogy Society, and Madison County Historic Preservation Commission, volunteers are researching and procuring Veterans Administration (VA) issued gravestones for Civil War soldiers currently lying in unmarked graves in Madison County cemeteries. Veterans of other pre-WWI conflicts were added to the project in early 2023 and as of 30 Aug 2024, 31 new stones have been placed and 2 repaired. One more is on hand waiting installation. Photographs of the gravestones already placed can be seen here.  (Posted 10 Aug 2025) 

 Gravestone - Obituary Link Project: Volunteer Kent Transier has been working over multiple years to review each of our over 38,000 obituaries.  He is improving the source listing with standardization and additional information, correcting the heading so that the individual's name is as complete as possible, checking that the gravestone link is accurate, and that corresponding iowagravestone.org entries have a link back to their Madison County obituary.  Many, many thanks to Kent for this important and tedious work that will be of great help to our website visitors. (Posted 30 Sep 2025)

Madison County Family Tree: Checkout the tree icon in the upper left of this screen.  Our online tree holds over 102,500 individuals, grouped in 33,750 families, 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.  In the period from April 2025 thru September 2025, 519 individuals and 76 families were added. 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.   (Posted 30 Sep 2025)

Current Contributors:  Maintenance and improvement of this website would be impossible without the continued support of various volunteer contributors. Those below are especially dedicated to their work and have our deep appreciation.  (Posted 30 Sep 2024)

• Special thanks go to Pat Hochstetler and Kathi Kuhl who have worked tirelessly in transcribing new obituaries weekly along with older obituaries as they are found.  Beth Hunsberger  weekly processies all incoming obituaries to standardized the listing, add a photo, and prepare them to be added to the OBITUARY INDEX.
  
  
• Since 2022, a variety of local genealogists, led by Pat Hochstetler, volunteer their time in cemeteries to gather data and to add photos for the Iowa Gravestones Photo Project for Madison County.  Pat then updates both row-by-row and alphabetical listing documents.  In the past year, a group of Madison County Genealogical Society members updated the 3-ring binders at the Winterset Public Library that hold all walks done in our 53 cemeteries since the mid-1970s. 
  
  
• Colleen Peterson has put much energy into the Civil War Gravestone Project, researching candidates, creating VA applications, communicating with cemetery trustees, coordinating installations, and inviting descendants, if known.  Starting in 2024, she is documenting veteran gravestones in every Madison County cemetery and researching their military service, which will be added to our MILITARY RECORDS pages.
  
  
• Donna Wenzl, through her volunteer work at the Iowa Gold Star Museum, finished her project to provide WWII Army, Navy, and Coast Guard veteran service information to be entered to our MILITARY RECORDS pages.
  
  
• Kent Transier, although retired from active County Coordinator duties, continues to expand the website with new/additional information in many categories or to connect information within the website.  Recent examples include the Civil War Gravestone Project, creating cemetery maps with rows in support of the Iowa Gravestone Photo Project, an extensive Church History update, and standardizing obituary entries.