Indiana Wants Me



IndianaIf you have ancestors from Indiana, you are in luck. The Indiana State Digital Archives has an expanded online site with many collections available to researchers. Right on the Home Page is an easy search box where you can select from some 2.8 million records in the categories of the Indiana Death Records, the Institution Records, Military Records, Naturalization Records and other Misc. Historical Records.  The search has you place the surname and or given name or select from a keyword search such as a town or use a detailed search. However, using the general, all records with a surname will be your best approach to start.

For example, the surname ‘Rue’ was searched and there were 290 death records, 23 misc. historical records, 16 military records, 12 naturalization records and 5 institution records.  Under the death records, all the Rue individuals are listed in alphabetical order by the given names, then the death year. Most of the information is based on the Social Security Death Index Records, so deaths occurring before 1937 will not be listed.


With the military records, this covers the Civil War soldiers, the Indian Veterans Home, the National Guard from 1898 to 1940, the Mexican War Veterans, early military soldiers from 1810 to 1860 of Indiana and the Gold Star families of 1914-1918.


The institution records have a nice variety including prisoners going back to 1822, the Department of Correction Girl’s school from 1873 to 1935, the Julia E. Work Training School from 1891 to 1938, the School for the Deaf Admission records covering 1844 to 1988, Soldiers and Sailors Children’s Home which first had Indiana’s disabled veterans in 1866 and then Indiana’s orphans were added in 1872 with the database going to the early 1990s.


Quite a wide selection of records is with the misc. historical records. This collection covers registration in certain counties of Negroes and mulattoes populations, people admitted to the state bar in Marion County from 1822 to 1980, foster children from 1892 to 1910 and Wills of Marion County.


If you locate  possible ancestor you can click on the name for a few additional details on that record. It will also provide the box, book, page location and a reference number in the Indiana Archives.  Make note of that information as your place of source for any data gathered for your files.


Some of the near future collections relating to Indiana will have the nursing schools, additional naturalization records and land records for Crawfordsville.

< Return To Blog Interested in information going before 1835, Dearborn and Ripley County.
Janette 12/01/12


One suggestion if you hadn't checked yet, is the historical societies and museums for each county, including the genealogical societies for each also.
alice 12/01/12




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