Minnesota has more than one official nickname. When I searched for the state’s nickname on Google, it said that one of them was “The Gopher State”. What do gophers and genealogists have in common? They both do a whole lot of digging! Here are some Minnesota genealogy resources that you can dig through in order to find out more about your ancestors who lived in “The Gopher State”.
FamilySearch has a Wiki page about the state of Minnesota. There are links for each and every county in Minnesota. Click on any of them, and it will bring you to a FamilySearch Wiki that is specifically about that county. You can also find links to the major repositories of Minnesota records. Towards the bottom of their page, there are links to other FamilySearch Wiki articles about their Minnesota collections.
Ancestry.com has a page filled with links to their many collections of Minnesota records. In order to access these records, you need to have an Ancestry.com membership. Once in a while, some collections will be offered for free. Return to their page often. Ancestry.com does a good job of making it clear when a collection is new, has been updated, or is currently offered for free.
Interment.net has cemetery records online. There are two ways to start your search at this website. You can put your ancestor’s name into the search engine at the top of the page. Or, you can select one of the many links to counties in Minnesota. If there is a link attached, it means that there is access to records from cemeteries within that county.
Cyndi’s List is probably the most comprehensive list of genealogy links on the internet. They have a page called “United States – Minnesota”. Start by choosing a category. Some include: “Birth, Marriage, Death”, “Census”, “Counties”, “Military”, “Newspapers”, and more!
The Minnesota Genealogical Society helps people find their family history. Part of their page lists the days and hours that the MGS Library & Research Center will be open. Their website has a list of upcoming classes that that the Society will be involved in.
MGS has a Facebook page that you can visit. This is a good way to connect with other genealogists who are interested in researching ancestors who lived in Minnesota.
GeneaLinks has an easy to use search engine at the top of its page. Put in the name of your ancestor, and select the record type. Choose from: vital, birth, death, marriage, divorce, or “Genealogy”. GeneaLinks has helpful information for genealogists who are new to Minnesota genealogy. Did you know that all vital records in Minnesota are kept private?
Image by Amy Meredith on Flickr