How To: Getting Started with Genealogy
Researching your family’s history can be a challenging, but extremely rewarding endeavor. Getting started with genealogy research can be overwhelming, so we’ve put together this post to help you get started. We hope that this post will serve as a jumpstart for your genealogy research and outline the tools and resources available at City Archives & Special Collections.
As the repository for records of the city of New Orleans, we hold almost exclusively New Orleans records. Researchers looking to trace ancestors from other parishes or locations will need to do further research to determine where those records are held, but the types of records that are likely to exist and the information that can be gleaned from them should be consistent with what is described below.
Preparation
Identify what you already know about your family and record that information. Talk to your relatives; most families have at least one person who serves as a ‘memory-keeper.” Listen and record their stories. Check for a family bible or other document describing vital records for the family.
Researcher Hint: Start from your living relatives and work backwards. It may be tempting to jump in a few generations back, but it usually pays off to move backwards, and you avoid the risk of following the wrong line of people with the same name.
What do you want to learn? Are you trying to trace your lineage as far back as possible? Find out how many living ancestors you had in 1900? Learn what a grandparent did for a living? Find out if a family story about a great uncle is true? These questions matter because they may influence which sources you want to research.
Researcher Hint: Narrow down your broader questions to specific information about specific people for each research session. You can look into more details or other aspects of their lives next time. This helps you from becoming overwhelmed trying to learn every possible fact about an individual or family line.
Create a system for organizing the information that you are gathering. This can be as simple as a notebook or as complex as a digital database visualizing your family tree. There are a variety of free and paid tools for helping you to map out your family tree and connect the information that you find about your ancestors. What matters is that the system works for you. The National Archives and Records Administration and Ancestry.com both offer a number of free downloadable charts for keeping track of information learned as well as your sources.
Researcher Hint: Keep track of where you got what information. This helps if you ever need to double-check the resource. Researchers should be able to answer these questions: What is this record? Where did you find it? What is the call number? Would someone else be able to find this record again based on the information that you recorded?
Genealogy Guide
Now that you have prepared, it’s time for the actual research. We recommend reviewing our Genealogy Guide, which compiles different record collections from across our holdings that researchers may find useful for genealogy research. Within the Guide, the three most popular resources are: Vital Records, Obituaries, and City Directories. These resources offer the most universal appeal because they contain records for the greatest number of citizens of New Orleans, while other collections reflect a relatively small number of individuals. Consider what you have learned about your ancestors so far to determine which collections are most likely to be of interest to you. For example, a second great uncle who worked for the Fire Department might be included in the department’s records, but a grandmother who was listed on the census as having been born in the United States probably does not have an immigration or naturalization record.
As a repository for city records, we primarily hold records created by or for the city over its normal course of business. Be mindful of interactions that your ancestors could have had with with the city, which would result in the creation of a record.
Researcher Hint: Be creative with spelling, as it can change or be mis-recorded over time. Think about phonetic spellings of names and places. Handwritten numbers like birth year may be difficult to decipher with confidence.
Now that you’ve identified the collection(s) of interest in our holdings, look at the description to learn more about how to access them. You can view digital collections online or schedule an appointment to view physical and microfilmed collections in person.
Vital Records
Vital records are a great place to start, which is why they are listed at the top of our Genealogy Guide. Vital records are often created and or kept by government entities and record major life events such as birth, marriage and death. City Archives & Special Collections will generally only have copies of vital records that were created in New Orleans, records created elsewhere in the state will either be with the State Health Department, State Archives or with their originating parish. Below is a listing of the kinds of information that can often be discovered using each of these vital records, and where to locate them. The access restrictions noted below are for the State of Louisiana.
Researcher Hint: Different states have different laws about if and when vital records become public record. When in doubt, start by contacting the state’s health department to learn about local laws for accessing vital records.
Birth Certificates
- Name of the person
- Birth date of the person
- Birth place of the person
- Names of the parents
Birth Certificates are not available at City Archives & Special Collections, and there are restrictions on who can view birth certificates less than 100 years old.
Learn more about Birth Certificates and how to access them
Death Certificates
- Name of the person
- Birth date of the person
- Death place of the person
- Death date of the person
There are restrictions on who can view death certificates less than 50 years old.
Learn more about Death Certificates and how to access them.
Marriage Records
- Names of the couple (including wife’s maiden name)
- Birth dates of the couple
- Marriage place of the couple
- Marriage date of the couple
- Names of the couple’s parents
There are restrictions on who can view marriage certificates less than 50 years old.
Learn more about Marriage Records and how to access them.
Census Records
- Names of people residing together
- Familial relationships between those people
- Ages of people
- Place those people lived
- Occupations of people
There can be even more information depending on the year, and you can track changes over the 10 years between each census.
Learn more about Census Records and how to access them.
Orphans Records
- Name of person
- Age of person
- Place the person was sent
- Name of person who brought the person in
These limited records describe where Destitute Orphans were sent by the Mayor from 1852-1893. These records do not represent all orphans in New Orleans, but constitute the extent of our holdings.
Search the Disposition of Destitute Orphans index.
Voter Registration
- Name of peson
- Age of person
- Address of person
- Birth place of person
There can be even more information depending on the year. Sometimes details such as occupation, time lived in New Orleans, and naturalization information for immigrants were recorded.
Learn more about Voter Registration Records and how to access them.
Obituaries
Another excellent resource for genealogy is the obituary. Obituaries are not mandatory and there is a fee to print them in the newspaper, however, if you locate one there may be a trove of information. Obituaries usually include the full name and date and age at death. They may list the names of living and or deceased relatives. They may list information about the funeral and burial arrangements as well as membership in mutual aid societies. They can even include the occupation of the person.
City Directories
Directories can also be extremely useful for genealogists. Like many of these records, the information included in them varies over time, but you should be able to locate names of the head of household and at least an approximate address. Many early directories will refer to cross streets rather than a house number. Later directories may describe an occupation or employer, identify widows, and more. Criss-Cross directories allowing you to search by address in addition to name start in 1932. Check out the abbreviation guide at the start of the address section to make sure that you are gleaning all possible information from this source.
Next Steps
Once you have exhausted all leads for a particular relative in our holdings you can go back to the beginning and look at other relatives. Or, if you find references to where else they might have lived, you can investigate where records for that place are housed. The Clerk of Court for that Parish or County are often good starting places.
You may encounter conflicting evidence as you research; genealogy involves humans, and humans are fallible. Don’t be put off by slight discrepancies. For example, when a census record puts a person a year older or younger than your other research suggests, it may be a matter of when in the year they were asked relative to when they had their last birthday rather than an actual difference.
Researcher Hint: Look for at least two pieces of evidence to corroborate any information about your ancestors, including oral traditions.
Searching Online
There are also online databases with digitized copies or transcripts of original documents relating to genealogy. New Orleans Public Library Card-holders have free access to Heritage Quest, as well as access to Ancestry while in the Library. USGenWeb offers free volunteer-created transcriptions of records that may be of interest to genealogists. Find a Grave also relies on user submissions to describe headstones and other genealogical information. FamilySearch offers additional digital genealogical records, many of which can be searched and accessed remotely with a free account.
Researcher Hint: Double-check the content of records located through online searching. The technology for computers to read handwriting and scanned documents is impressive and ever improving, but it can still make errors.
Genealogy How To Posts
Check out our How To posts for detailed information on using specific genealogy resources in our collections.
Genealogy Programs
Join us for our annual Genealgy Festival, GenFest, and stay updated with all of our upcoming programs.
View recordings of our past Genealogy programs to learn more about other resources and strategies for conducting Genealogical research.
GenFest 2025
Taking Programming on the Road
GenFest 2024
Programs: Double Victory: Examining the Life of an African American World War II Soldier with Gaynell Brady
Programs: History of the New Orleans Fire Department with Nikki Caruso
Holt Cemetery: History and Genealogy
Home DNA Testing and You
Finding Isabelle “Ma Belle” Jefferson
Identifying Your Catholic Ancestors
Final Thoughts
Genealogy can be deeply personal, and the path that you take to learn more about your ancestors may differ from the one laid out above. Think of this post as a starting point to learn about the resources available to you through City Archives & Special Collections.
More Resources
Check out our Genealogy Guide to learn more about all of the resources we have collected to assist with genealogy research.