Delaware Historical Societies

This directory lists 6 historical societies, museums, and archives in Delaware, including the Lewes Historical Society in Sussex County. Below the listings you will find a working guide to the state-level repositories that hold the records a family historian or house researcher in Delaware actually needs: the Delaware Public Archives in Dover, the Office of Vital Statistics, the three county Recorder of Deeds offices, and the digitized newspapers produced by the University of Delaware.

Delaware was settled by the Swedes at Fort Christina in 1638, passed to the Dutch and then to the English Duke of York in 1664, and was governed as the Lower Counties of William Penn's proprietorship from 1682. It ratified the U.S. Constitution first, on December 7, 1787. Because the state has only three counties, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, and those boundaries have been stable since the colonial period, county-level research here is simpler than in most states: you rarely have to work out which jurisdiction kept a record, only which decade.

Featured Historical Societies

Major repositories for Delaware research

The Delaware Public Archives (DPA) at 121 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. North in Dover is the state archives and the single most important stop. Its Mabel Lloyd Ridgely Research Room is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The DPA holds the older vital records, probate and Orphans' Court files, naturalization papers for Kent and New Castle counties, Revolutionary War oaths of allegiance, Civil War correspondence, and large photograph collections, and it publishes subject guides for vital statistics, census records, Civil War records, and Orphans' Court records on its Digital Archives page. Its collections portal describes nearly 1.3 million records.

Through a partnership with Ancestry, the DPA offers free access to the Delaware records Ancestry digitized from its holdings: births (about 1650-1908), deaths (about 1650-1933), marriages (about 1650-1933), land records (about 1677-1947), wills (about 1677-1947), and naturalizations (1796-1820). See the Digital Ancestry page for how the access works; it covers only the DPA collections, not Ancestry's wider databases.

• Delaware Historical Society, Research Library and Archives, 504 N. Market Street, Wilmington. The society describes its roughly 3 million items as the largest privately held collection of Delaware material; research visits are booked by appointment through dehistory.org.
• University of Delaware Special Collections and Museums, Morris Library, 181 S. College Avenue, Newark, open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Holds manuscript collections and Delawareana, with finding aids and digital collections at library.udel.edu/special.
• Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, the state agency that runs the State Historic Preservation Office and the state museums (see the house-research section below).

Delaware birth, death, marriage, and divorce records

Delaware tried statewide birth registration early, in 1861, but dropped it in 1863. Registration resumed in 1881 for both births and deaths; deaths were being reported reliably by about 1890, while births did not reach general compliance until around 1921. Marriage registration at the state level started in 1847 and was generally complied with by 1913. Expect gaps in any of these series before those compliance dates and fall back on church registers, newspapers, and the DPA's private vital statistics and cemetery compilations.

Where to order depends on age of the record:

• The Office of Vital Statistics (Division of Public Health) issues certified copies of births from the last 72 years and deaths and marriages from the last 40 years. It has walk-in offices at 258 Chapman Road in Newark, 805 River Road in Dover, and 546 S. Bedford Street in Georgetown, open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and takes mail and online orders (GoCertificates and VitalChek add their own service fees).
• Anything older has been transferred to the Delaware Public Archives, which also holds the early county marriage records beginning in 1832. Start with the DPA's Guide to Vital Statistics Records and the free Ancestry access described above.
• Divorces before about 1890 were granted by the General Assembly; the DPA keeps a card catalog of these legislative divorces. Later divorces are court records, held by the county Prothonotary and, for modern cases, Family Court.

Land, deed, and property records in Delaware

Delaware is a state-land state: there was never a federal land office here, so the chain of title begins with colonial grants from the Swedish and Dutch governments, the Duke of York after 1664, and the Penn proprietors from 1682. The DPA holds land grant records for 1682-1759, and the Penn proprietary records have been microfilmed and are available through FamilySearch.

Every later transfer between private owners is recorded by the Recorder of Deeds in the county where the property sits. The county recorders hold deeds, mortgages, and leases from the late 1600s to the present; Kent County deeds survive from 1680 and Sussex County deeds from 1693. New Castle County offers an online index to its land records that can be searched by name and date range, with volume and page references that let you pull the digitized book page. Delaware land records from about 1677 to 1947 are also in the free DPA-Ancestry collection, which is often the fastest way to work backward through a 19th-century chain of title without a courthouse trip. For the method, see our guide to tracing a property's deed history.

Probate is a separate trail. Delaware wills and estate records (about 1677-1947) are in the same free Ancestry collection, and the DPA's Orphans' Court records cover guardianships and the partition of land among heirs, which is frequently where a farm's ownership changes without a deed.

Delaware newspapers and city directories

Delaware's newspapers are unusually well digitized for a small state. The University of Delaware Library ran the Delaware Digital Newspaper Project from 2015 to 2019 under the National Digital Newspaper Program: the first phase scanned about 90,000 pages from 104 Delaware titles, and the second added roughly 100,000 more pages covering long runs of two titles. All of it is free and keyword-searchable in the Library of Congress Chronicling America database, and the UD guide links each title directly. The state's first paper, the Delaware Gazette, began in Wilmington in 1785; major original runs are held by the Delaware Historical Society, the Library of Congress, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

For Wilmington city directories, which run through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, check the Delaware Historical Society research library and the Delaware Public Archives first; the DPA's photograph and document collections are organized by town, which helps when a directory gives only a street name. Our article on using old city directories explains how to turn a directory listing into a house date or an occupation.

Census, military, and statewide indexes

Two federal censuses are missing for Delaware: the 1790 schedules were lost, and 1890 burned with the rest of the country's. For 1790, use the tax lists that survive at the DPA and in the compiled census-substitute index that covers 1790-1890. Delaware did not take its own state censuses, so the federal returns from 1800 to 1950 are the backbone, with the 1850-1880 mortality schedules as a supplement for deaths before registration began.

• Delaware Vital Record Index Cards, 1680-1934 on FamilySearch, built from the DPA card files, is the broadest single name index for the state.
• The DPA publishes a Revolutionary War records guide, a Civil War records guide, and finding aids for World War I and World War II state records, all linked from its Digital Archives page.
• Naturalization records for Kent and New Castle counties are among the DPA's digitized document collections, and the free Ancestry access includes naturalizations for 1796-1820.
• The DPA's private vital statistics collection compiles tombstone and cemetery transcriptions; pair it with our guide to finding where someone is buried.

Researching a house or building in Delaware

The State Historic Preservation Office sits inside the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs. It administers the National Register of Historic Places program for Delaware, maintains a Historic Property Research Center, and runs CHRIS, the Cultural and Historical Resources Information System, a GIS tool for looking up surveyed and National Register-listed properties by location. If your building was ever surveyed, CHRIS is where the survey form lives.

The Delaware Public Archives administers the State of Delaware Historical Markers Program, which has erected more than 700 markers since the 1930s; the DPA has run it since 1990 and is building an online inventory of marker texts. The DPA also publishes a home research guide written for New Castle County that works equally well in Kent and Sussex. The basic sequence is deeds at the Recorder of Deeds, tax assessments and Orphans' Court partitions at the DPA, then fire insurance maps and photographs. Our step-by-step articles on dating your house and researching an old building cover the order of operations.

Working with Delaware historical societies

Delaware's local societies are organized by town rather than county, so a Sussex County house may be covered by the Lewes, Milford, or Georgetown group depending on where it stands. Most are volunteer-run with limited weekly hours, and research questions get better answers by email than by phone. Before you contact one, pull what you can from the DPA and the free Ancestry collection; local societies are strongest on photographs, family files, business ephemera, and the knowledge of which families owned which farms, not on the deeds and certificates the state already holds.

Additional Delaware History Resources

• Delaware Public Archives - State archives in Dover; vital, probate, land, and military records with online research guides
• DPA Digital Ancestry access - Free access to Delaware births, deaths, marriages, land, wills, and naturalizations digitized from DPA holdings
• Office of Vital Statistics - Certified copies of recent births, deaths, and marriages; offices in Newark, Dover, and Georgetown
• Delaware State Historic Preservation Office - National Register program and historic property research resources
• CHRIS - Cultural and Historical Resources Information System, the state's GIS database of surveyed historic properties
• Delaware Historical Markers Program - Inventory of the 700-plus state markers administered by the DPA
• Delaware Digital Newspaper Project - University of Delaware guide to the Delaware titles digitized for Chronicling America
• Delaware Historical Society - Research Library and Archives on Market Street in Wilmington, by appointment
• University of Delaware Special Collections - Manuscripts and Delawareana at Morris Library, Newark

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I get a Delaware birth certificate from the 1800s?

Births more than 72 years old are no longer at the Office of Vital Statistics; they are at the Delaware Public Archives in Dover. Statewide registration ran briefly from 1861 to 1863 and resumed in 1881, so a birth from the 1860s or 1870s may not have been recorded at all. The DPA's free Ancestry access covers Delaware births from about 1650 to 1908.

Are Delaware deeds online?

Partly. New Castle County's Recorder of Deeds has an online index searchable by name and date range with digitized book pages. Delaware land records from about 1677 to 1947 for all three counties were digitized by Ancestry from Delaware Public Archives holdings and can be used free through the DPA. Kent and Sussex deeds for recent decades are at the respective county Recorder of Deeds offices in Dover and Georgetown.

Which Delaware newspapers are free online?

The University of Delaware's Delaware Digital Newspaper Project (2015-2019) put about 190,000 pages from more than 100 Delaware titles into Chronicling America, the Library of Congress's free database. The UD research guide lists every title with a direct link.

Why can't I find my Delaware ancestor in the 1790 census?

The 1790 federal census for Delaware was lost. Use the surviving tax lists at the Delaware Public Archives, or the compiled Delaware census-substitute index covering 1790-1890. The 1800 census is the first surviving federal enumeration for the state.