Kentucky Historical Societies

This directory lists 7 historical societies, museums, and archives in Kentucky, including the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, whose research library and marker program anchor local history work across the state, and My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown. The guide below is written for someone tracing a family or a farm in a specific Kentucky county, with the offices, date ranges, and quirks you need to know before you drive to Frankfort.

Kentucky was part of Virginia until it became the fifteenth state on June 1, 1792. Virginia created Kentucky County in 1776 and split it into Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln counties in 1780, so the earliest deeds, land entries, court orders, and marriages for any Kentucky family were recorded under Virginia law and sometimes sit in Virginia repositories. Settlement surged after Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in 1775, and the 120 counties that exist today were carved out over the following century, which means a family that never moved can appear in four or five different county courthouses.

Featured Historical Societies

Major repositories for Kentucky records

Three institutions in Frankfort, plus one in Louisville, hold most of what a Kentucky researcher needs.

• Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA), 300 Coffee Tree Road, Frankfort, (502) 564-8300. The state archives. Its Archives Research Room holds microfilm of county records (order books, wills, deeds, marriage bonds, civil and criminal case files), the 1852-1910 county vital statistics registers, death certificates from 1911 to 1967, circuit court records, and state agency records. Its research guides page has downloadable handouts for vital statistics, census, divorce, marriage, county, court, probate, and land records.
• Kentucky Historical Society, Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, 100 West Broadway, Frankfort. The Martin F. Schmidt Research Library (502-564-1792) holds the society's manuscript, map, and published collections and offers paid research for remote users (a single-record request is $21.20; hourly research is $47.70 for members and $53.00 for non-members, with up to eight weeks for a reply).
• Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office, Capitol Annex, 702 Capital Avenue, Suite T-21-B, Frankfort, (502) 564-3490. The repository for every land patent issued inside Kentucky's boundaries, including those issued by Virginia before 1792. See the land section below.
• The Filson Historical Society, 1310 South Third Street, Louisville, (502) 635-5083. A private research library for Kentucky and Ohio Valley history with deep manuscript and family-paper collections; research visits are by appointment, and it publishes the journal Ohio Valley History. Details at filsonhistorical.org.

University of Kentucky Libraries in Lexington also matter for newspapers (see below) and special collections, and the University of Louisville holds Louisville-area photographs and archives.

Vital records: three distinct eras

Kentucky vital records fall into three periods, and the office you contact depends entirely on the date.

• 1852-1910, county registration: Kentucky required county clerks to report births, marriages, and deaths to the state auditor starting in 1852, but the law was ignored for long stretches. KDLA holds what survives: auditor's birth and death lists for 1852-1862, 1874-1879, and 1891-1910, plus separate city registers for Covington, Lexington, Louisville, and Newport covering parts of 1866-1910. Expect gaps; virtually every Kentucky county lost some records to courthouse fires.
• 1911 to present, state registration: statewide birth and death registration began in 1911. The Office of Vital Statistics, 275 East Main Street, Frankfort, KY 40621 (800-241-8322), issues certified birth and death certificates from 1911 forward (and delayed birth certificates for people born earlier). Orders go through VitalChek, by mail, in person Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or by drop box. Death certificates from 1911 to 1967 can also be viewed on microfilm at KDLA, which sells copies; for deaths after 1967 use the Office of Vital Statistics.
• Marriages and divorces: central registration began in June 1958. Before that, marriage bonds, licenses, and returns were kept by the County Clerk in the county where the license was issued, from each county's formation, and KDLA has microfilm for many counties. Divorces were granted by the circuit court (and, in early decades, by the legislature); KDLA's divorce records guide explains where each era's files are.

Access rules: Kentucky birth records become public 100 years after the event and death records after 50 years. KDLA also sells an index to Kentucky births, marriages, and deaths covering 1911-1999.

Land grants, patents, and deeds

Kentucky is a state-land state: there are no federal General Land Office records. Land passed from the government to the first private owner by patent, and the Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office in Frankfort holds every patent series, warrant, entry, and survey. The main series, with the dates they cover, are:

• Virginia Grants, 1773-1792, issued by Virginia before statehood, largely to French and Indian War and Revolutionary War veterans or their heirs. Virginia Treasury Warrants sold from October 15, 1779, to December 24, 1783, number more than 23,000.
• Old Kentucky Grants, 1793-1856, covering military, seminary, academy, treasury-warrant, and preemption grants.
• Grants South of Green River, 1797-1866, the former Virginia military reserve, opened to Revolutionary War soldiers and to squatters seeking relief.
• Tellico Grants, 1802-1853, for Cherokee lands ceded in 1805.
• Kentucky Land Warrants, 1816-1873, mainly east of the Tennessee River.
• Grants West of the Tennessee River, 1822-1900, the Jackson Purchase.

The Virginia, Old Kentucky, and West of Tennessee military patent series have been scanned and are searchable on the Land Office site, as are the Lincoln County entries (4,763 entries reserving land from November 1779 to April 1792). Once land was in private hands, each later sale was recorded by the County Clerk in deed books at the county courthouse, indexed by grantor and grantee; KDLA holds microfilm of most counties' deed books, and its Kentucky Land Records Research Guide walks through the patent-to-deed chain. When a county was created, deeds for land inside the new boundary were recorded in the new county from that date, so check the parent county for earlier transactions.

Newspapers and city directories

The Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program at University of Kentucky Libraries is the state's partner in the National Digital Newspaper Program, and the Kentucky titles it has digitized are full-text searchable at Chronicling America. Search there first for nineteenth- and early twentieth-century obituaries, estate sale notices, and legal advertisements, which in Kentucky often name heirs and describe land by watercourse.

KDLA and the Kentucky Historical Society both hold newspaper microfilm for titles that are not online, and the Filson's library is strong for Louisville papers. Louisville, Lexington, Covington, and Newport had annual city directories by the mid-1800s; the Louisville Free Public Library, the Filson, and the University of Louisville hold long runs, and digitized volumes also appear on subscription sites. Our guide to using old city directories shows how to combine a directory listing with the 1866-1910 city birth and death registers at KDLA to pin a family to a street in the decades before state registration.

Census, tax lists, and statewide indexes

Kentucky never took a state census, and its 1790 and 1800 federal returns were lost. The accepted substitutes are the annual county tax lists, which survive for most counties from their formation and name every taxable man each year; they are on microfilm at KDLA and let you follow a family year by year between the surviving federal censuses of 1810 through 1950. Supplementary federal schedules include the 1840 pensioners list, 1850-1880 mortality, agricultural, and manufacturing schedules, the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules, and the 1890 veterans schedule.

Two statewide indexes save enormous time. The KDLA index to births, marriages, and deaths 1911-1999 covers the state-registration era, and the Land Office patent databases cover the first owner of nearly every tract. For the 1852-1910 gap, KDLA's vital statistics guide lists which rolls of microfilm exist for each county.

Military research starts with the Land Office for Revolutionary War warrants, then moves to the Kentucky Historical Society, which holds adjutant general reports and Civil War collections for both Union and Confederate Kentuckians, and to KDLA for Confederate pension applications filed with the state in the twentieth century.

Researching a house or building in Kentucky

The Kentucky Heritage Council is the State Historic Preservation Office, located in the Barstow House at 410 High Street, Frankfort (502-564-7005, open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays). Kentucky has one of the largest National Register inventories in the country: its National Register program counts more than 3,400 listed districts, sites, and structures encompassing more than 42,000 individual historic features, the fourth-highest total among states. A nomination form for a listed district typically includes a building-by-building inventory with construction dates, so search the National Park Service listings for your town before you start at the courthouse.

For the deed chain itself, go to the County Clerk's deed books and work backward, then jump to the Land Office patent when you reach the first private owner; our guide to tracing a property's deed history explains the mechanics. Sanborn fire insurance maps cover Kentucky's cities and county seats from the 1880s to the mid-twentieth century; the Library of Congress has put its pre-1900 sheets online and University of Kentucky Libraries holds later editions. Pair them with city directories and the Kentucky Historical Society's Historical Marker Program, which has installed more than 2,400 roadside markers since 1949 and is searchable on the Explore Kentucky History site. Our article on finding when your house was built covers the remaining steps.

Working with Kentucky county societies

Kentucky local history is organized by county, and most of the state's societies are county historical or genealogical societies that meet monthly and keep a library in a courthouse annex, a public library room, or a donated house. Many have transcribed and published the county's early marriages, wills, cemetery readings, and tax lists in booklets that never reached a national database, so ask whether a publications list exists. If a courthouse burned, the county society is often the only place where reconstructed records (re-recorded deeds, church registers, family Bibles) have been gathered. Confirm hours before visiting; volunteer-run rooms commonly open only one or two days a week.

Additional Kentucky History Resources

• Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, research guides - State archives in Frankfort; handouts on vital statistics 1852-1910, county, court, land, and marriage records
• Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics - Birth and death certificates from 1911, marriages and divorces from June 1958
• Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office - Virginia and Kentucky land patents, warrants, surveys, and online databases
• Kentucky Historical Society, Martin F. Schmidt Research Library - Research library at the Thomas D. Clark Center, Frankfort
• Kentucky Historical Marker Program - More than 2,400 markers installed since 1949, with a searchable database
• Kentucky Heritage Council - State Historic Preservation Office and National Register program
• Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program - University of Kentucky Libraries newspaper digitization for Chronicling America
• The Filson Historical Society - Private research library for Kentucky and Ohio Valley history in Louisville
• Chronicling America - Free full-text search of digitized Kentucky newspapers at the Library of Congress

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I find Kentucky birth and death records before 1911?

There was no statewide registration before 1911. Kentucky required counties to report births and deaths starting in 1852, and the surviving auditor's lists for 1852-1862, 1874-1879, and 1891-1910, plus city registers for Covington, Lexington, Louisville, and Newport, are on microfilm at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives in Frankfort. Coverage is incomplete, so also check church, cemetery, and newspaper sources.

How do I find a Kentucky land grant or patent?

Search the Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office, which holds every patent issued inside Kentucky, including Virginia grants from 1773 to 1792. The Virginia, Old Kentucky, and West of Tennessee military series are scanned and searchable online; later deeds between private owners are in the County Clerk's deed books.

Did Kentucky take state censuses?

No. Kentucky has no state censuses, and the 1790 and 1800 federal returns were lost. Use the annual county tax lists on microfilm at KDLA as a substitute, then the federal censuses from 1810 to 1950.

Where are Kentucky marriage records kept?

Marriage bonds, licenses, and returns were recorded by the County Clerk in the county that issued the license, from the county's formation. Statewide central registration of marriages and divorces only began in June 1958 at the Office of Vital Statistics in Frankfort, so for anything earlier go to the county clerk or to KDLA's county microfilm.