Florida Historical Societies

This directory lists 87 historical societies, museums, and archives in Florida, from the Pensacola Historical Society in the Panhandle to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County on the Atlantic coast and the Historical Society of Central Florida in Orlando. Most are county-level organizations, which matters in Florida because the county is where nearly every local record (deeds, marriages, probate, court files) was created and is still kept.

Florida passed through two Spanish periods, a British interlude (1763-1783), and a United States territorial era before it was admitted as the 27th state on March 3, 1845. That sequence shaped the records: land titles granted under Spain had to be proved before American land commissioners in the 1820s, the federal General Land Office opened its first Florida office at Tallahassee in 1825, and the state's 67 counties were carved out over more than a century, so a family that never moved can appear in the records of three or four different counties. Statewide birth and death registration did not begin until 1899 and was not generally complied with until about 1920, which pushes most 19th-century research back to county courthouses, church registers, and the state censuses described below.

Featured Historical Societies

Major repositories in Florida

Florida keeps its state library and state archives under one roof. The State Archives of Florida and the State Library of Florida share the R.A. Gray Building at 500 South Bronough Street in Tallahassee, both run by the Division of Library and Information Services of the Department of State (dos.fl.gov/library-archives). The archives' public face is Florida Memory (floridamemory.com), which hosts digitized record series including the Spanish Land Grant dossiers, the Florida Photographic Collection, and research guides to the territorial era. The State Library side offers a genealogy bibliography and in-building access to Ancestry Library Edition, Fold3, and HeritageQuest Online.

• Florida Historical Society, 435 Brevard Avenue, Cocoa. Founded in 1856, it operates the Library of Florida History, a research collection of manuscripts, maps, and printed Floridiana (myfloridahistory.org).
• P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville. This is the largest academic collection on Florida and the source of most of the newspapers in the Florida Digital Newspaper Library described below (ufdc.ufl.edu).

Florida vital records: births, deaths, marriages, divorces

Certified copies of Florida birth, death, marriage, and divorce records are issued by the Bureau of Vital Statistics of the Florida Department of Health, headquartered in Jacksonville (floridahealth.gov/certificates). The office accepts orders by mail, in person, or through its approved online vendor.

• Births: statewide registration began in 1899. The Bureau also holds scattered earlier births from 1865 onward, but coverage before about 1917 is incomplete.
• Deaths: the Bureau holds incomplete records from 1877 and statewide records from 1917. Recent records that include cause of death are restricted to eligible family members.
• Marriages and divorces: the state index starts in June 1927. Before that date, go to the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county where the license was issued. County marriage books usually run from the date the county was created, which for the older counties means the 1820s and 1830s.

For anything before 1917 your best route is usually the county clerk, not the state. Many Florida clerks have scanned their marriage and probate books; others still require a written request or a visit. For the Spanish period, Catholic parish registers from St. Augustine are the main substitute for civil vital records; ask the P.K. Yonge Library about microfilm or digital copies before writing to the parish.

Land, deed, and property records in Florida

Florida is a public-land (federal-land) state, but with a twist: before the United States could sell land it had to settle the private titles granted under Spain and Britain. After the 1821 cession, Congress created a Board of Land Commissioners for West Florida in 1822 and for East Florida in 1823 to hear those claims. The dossiers that claimants filed, which include petitions to Spanish governors, surveys and plats, deeds of sale, wills, and English translations, survive at the State Archives as Series 990 (confirmed claims) and Series 991 (unconfirmed claims). Both series are fully digitized on Florida Memory as the Spanish Land Grants collection, and they are the single richest source for families who lived in Florida before 1821.

Once land passed from the federal government to a private owner, every later transaction was recorded by the Clerk of the Circuit Court, who serves as the county recorder in each of Florida's 67 counties. Look for the clerk's "Official Records" search; deeds, mortgages, plats, and judgments are indexed by grantor and grantee name and by book and page. How far back the online images go varies widely: some counties have scanned deed books from the 1860s, while others only offer images from the 1970s or 1980s and keep older books on microfilm or in the vault.

• Federal patents: the first Florida land office opened in Tallahassee in 1825. The Bureau of Land Management holds the original patents, tract books, and township plats and provides a free name-searchable index with images at glorecords.blm.gov.
• Territorial research: Florida Memory publishes a Guide to Researching the Territorial Era that walks through the land-claim records series by series.

Our guide to tracing a property's deed history explains how to run a grantor-grantee chain backward once you have found the current deed.

Florida newspapers and city directories

Florida has one of the strongest free newspaper programs in the country. The Florida Digital Newspaper Library, hosted by the University of Florida, has grown to roughly three million pages of historic and current Florida newspapers, most of them from the P.K. Yonge Library's holdings. Search by title, county, date, or keyword at the dedicated portal newspapers.uflib.ufl.edu, or browse the collection inside UF Digital Collections at ufdc.ufl.edu/collections/fdnl. Access is free and no account is needed.

Florida titles are also in the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, which is useful for 19th-century papers from Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Pensacola, and Key West. The State Library of Florida maintains a newspaper microfilm collection and a guide to Florida newspapers, magazines, and journals at dos.fl.gov/library-archives.

City directories for Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami, Pensacola, and other larger towns are scattered among the State Library, the P.K. Yonge Library, and the main public library in each city; check UF Digital Collections for digitized runs first. Our article on using old city directories shows how to pair a directory with a Sanborn map to pin down a house or business.

Census, military, and statewide indexes

Florida took its own censuses in addition to the federal count, and three of them fill gaps that researchers in other states cannot close:

• 1885 state census: lists every household member, and partly offsets the lost 1890 federal census.
• 1935 and 1945 state censuses: both name every household member, placing a full enumeration between the 1940 and 1950 federal counts and catching families who arrived during the Depression and wartime years.
• 1867 and 1875 state censuses: heads of household only, with surviving returns for a limited set of counties.

All five are indexed and imaged on FamilySearch or Ancestry (or both), and the originals belong to the State Archives of Florida.

Florida appears in the federal census from 1830 (as a territory) through 1950. Because the territorial population was small, the 1830 and 1840 schedules are quick to scan county by county.

For military research, the State Library's in-building access to Fold3 covers federal compiled service records and pension files for the Seminole Wars, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. Ask the State Archives reference desk about state-level series such as Confederate pension applications, and check Florida Memory's historical records section for digitized military files before ordering copies.

Researching a house or building in Florida

The state historic preservation office is the Division of Historical Resources of the Florida Department of State, housed in the R.A. Gray Building in Tallahassee (dos.fl.gov/historical). Its Bureau of Historic Preservation reviews National Register of Historic Places nominations, runs the Florida Main Street and historic cemeteries programs, and administers the state Historical Marker Program, which has an online marker database and map (dos.fl.gov/historical/preservation/historical-markers).

Start a house history with the Florida Master Site File, the state's official inventory of more than 261,000 recorded cultural resources (historic structures, archaeological sites, cemeteries, bridges, and districts) plus 29,000 survey reports, kept in Room 425 of the R.A. Gray Building (dos.fl.gov/historical/preservation/master-site-file). Staff will search it on request; a hit returns the survey form with a construction date estimate, style, and photographs, and tells you whether the building sits in a recorded district.

• Sanborn fire insurance maps exist for most Florida towns from the 1880s to the mid-twentieth century. Check UF Digital Collections and the Library of Congress's online Sanborn collection first, then the local public library for later editions on microfilm.
• Deeds and plats are at the county Clerk of the Circuit Court (see the land section above). Subdivision plats are especially helpful in Florida because so many neighborhoods were platted during the 1920s land boom.
• Property appraiser records: each county's property appraiser lists a "year built" and often a sales history, which gives you a starting date to test against deeds and maps.

Our step-by-step guides cover the rest: how to find out when your house was built, researching the history of an old building, and finding where someone is buried when the trail leads to a family cemetery.

Working with Florida's county historical societies

Because Florida's population arrived in waves (territorial settlers, post-Civil War homesteaders, the 1920s boom, and the post-1945 migration), county societies such as the Historical Society of Sarasota County and the Historical Society of Bay County hold their strongest material for the twentieth century: photographs, oral histories, subdivision promotional literature, and clippings that never made it into a statewide index. Most are volunteer-run with limited weekday hours, so email ahead with the names, dates, and places you are tracing, and expect a modest research fee for non-members. Many share space with a county museum or a public library's Florida Room, whose local history staff can often answer a question faster. Finally, check when your county was created: records from before that date sit in the courthouse of the parent county.

Additional Florida History Resources

• State Archives of Florida and State Library of Florida - R.A. Gray Building, Tallahassee; state records, genealogy databases, and Florida Memory
• Florida Memory - Digitized State Archives collections including Spanish Land Grants and the Florida Photographic Collection
• Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics - Order birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates (Department of Health, Jacksonville)
• Florida Digital Newspaper Library - Free University of Florida portal to roughly three million pages of Florida newspapers
• Florida Division of Historical Resources - State Historic Preservation Office: National Register, historical markers, Master Site File
• Florida Master Site File - Official inventory of 261,000+ historic structures, sites, and cemeteries; search by request
• Florida Historical Marker Program - Searchable database and map of state historical markers
• Florida Historical Society - Founded 1856; Library of Florida History in Cocoa
• BLM General Land Office Records - Free index and images of federal land patents and survey plats for Florida
• UF Digital Collections - University of Florida digital library: newspapers, maps, directories, and P.K. Yonge Library materials

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Florida start keeping birth and death records?

Statewide registration of births and deaths began in 1899, but compliance was poor until about 1920. The Bureau of Vital Statistics in Jacksonville holds scattered births from 1865 and deaths from 1877, with reliable statewide coverage from 1917. For earlier events, look to county records, church registers, and the 1885 state census.

Where are Florida's Spanish land grant records?

The dossiers filed with the Board of Land Commissioners after 1821 are held by the State Archives of Florida as Series 990 (confirmed claims) and Series 991 (unconfirmed claims). Both series are digitized in the Spanish Land Grants collection on Florida Memory, where you can search by claimant name and read the original Spanish documents alongside period translations.

Which Florida state census years list every person in the household?

The 1885, 1935, and 1945 state censuses name all household members. The 1867 and 1875 state censuses list heads of household only. All are indexed on FamilySearch or Ancestry, and the 1885 census is a useful substitute for the lost 1890 federal census.

Who records deeds in Florida?

The Clerk of the Circuit Court in each of Florida's 67 counties is the county recorder. Deeds, mortgages, plats, and judgments are filed as Official Records and indexed by grantor and grantee. For the original transfer from the federal government, search the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office records, which cover Florida patents from the Tallahassee land office established in 1825.