Louisiana Historical Societies

This directory lists 6 historical societies, museums, and archives in Louisiana, among them the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans and Cane River Creole National Historical Park near Natchitoches. The guide that follows the listings explains where Louisiana's records actually sit: the State Archives in Baton Rouge, the Vital Records Registry in New Orleans, the Clerk of Court in each of the 64 parishes, and the digitized newspaper collections built by LSU Libraries.

Louisiana is the one state where the research rules are genuinely different. It was French from 1699, Spanish from the 1760s, briefly French again, and American only after the 1803 Purchase; it entered the Union on April 30, 1812. Its civil-law tradition means property passes through notarial acts and estates are settled as "successions" rather than probate, and the county-level unit is the parish. Orleans Parish kept vital records decades before anywhere else in the state, with births from 1790 and deaths from 1804, while statewide registration did not begin until 1911.

Featured Historical Societies

Major repositories for Louisiana research

The Louisiana State Archives, a division of the Secretary of State, is at 8585 Archives Avenue in Baton Rouge. It holds state government records, maps, photographs, personal papers, and newspapers, and it is the custodian of the historical vital records that have aged out of the Vital Records Registry: births more than 100 years old, deaths more than 50 years old, and Orleans Parish marriages more than 50 years old. Its online vital records index lets you search those three series by name before ordering a certified copy.

• The Historic New Orleans Collection operates the Williams Research Center at 410 Chartres Street in the French Quarter (museum at 520 Royal Street), open Tuesday to Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Its manuscripts, maps, and images cover the Gulf South from the colonial period forward; the catalog is at hnoc.org.
• City Archives and Special Collections, New Orleans Public Library, third floor of the Main Library at 219 Loyola Avenue, Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. by appointment. This is the official repository for New Orleans city government records, with roots in the Spanish-era archives of 1773, plus a genealogy collection focused on New Orleans, Louisiana, Nova Scotia, France, and Spain. Details at nolacityarchives.org.
• LSU Libraries Special Collections at Hill Memorial Library in Baton Rouge holds the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections and ran the state's newspaper digitization program.
• Louisiana Historical Association is the statewide scholarly society and publisher of the journal Louisiana History.

Louisiana vital records: New Orleans versus the parishes

Statewide registration of births and deaths began in 1911. Before that, only a few parishes kept any civil record of births or deaths, and for most families the church register is the only source. Orleans Parish is the exception: the city recorded births from 1790 and deaths from 1804, and those early records are the only pre-1911 births available from the state.

Louisiana restricts access by age of record. Births are confidential for 100 years after the year of birth and deaths for 50 years after the year of death; within those windows only the person named or an immediate relative can order a copy, and the records are not open to public searching.

• Recent records: the Vital Records Registry of the Louisiana Department of Health, Office of Public Health, based in New Orleans (P.O. Box 60630, New Orleans, LA 70160), holds births for 100 years and deaths for 50 years from the event.
• Older records: once a record passes the confidentiality period it is transferred to the Louisiana State Archives, which indexes them online and sells certified copies.
• Marriages: recorded by the Clerk of Court in the parish where the license was issued, except Orleans Parish, whose marriage records are kept by the Office of Public Health and then the State Archives after 50 years.
• Divorces: granted by the Legislature from 1805 to 1846 (look in the published legislative acts); district courts took jurisdiction after 1827, and those case files are with the parish Clerk of Court.

Land, conveyance, and succession records

Louisiana is a public-land state, but with a colonial layer underneath. The earliest land records are French and Spanish grants written in those languages and generally filed with notarial records; after the Purchase, holders of colonial grants had to register private land claims with the United States to confirm title, and most of those claims have been published and indexed. First sales of federal land after that point appear in the General Land Office records, searchable free at the BLM GLO Records site, which carries patent images and survey plats.

Every later transfer between private owners is recorded by the Clerk of Court in each parish. Louisiana calls these records conveyances rather than deeds, and the indexes are by vendor and vendee rather than grantor and grantee. Because Louisiana follows civil law, a sale, mortgage, or donation is executed before a notary and the notarial act is the operative document; in Orleans Parish the historic notarial acts are preserved in the Notarial Archives, now part of the Clerk of Civil District Court. The Louisiana State Land Office at 1201 N. Third Street in Baton Rouge keeps the state's own patents and historical land files.

Estates are opened as successions in the district court of the parish and filed with the Clerk of Court; a succession judgment is often the only document that shows how a plantation or town lot passed to heirs. For the general method of following a chain of title, see how to trace a property's deed history, substituting vendor/vendee indexes for grantor/grantee.

Louisiana newspapers and city directories

LSU Libraries ran the Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project from 2009 to 2015 under the National Digital Newspaper Program, scanning 128 Louisiana titles published between 1836 and 1922, a total of about 328,900 pages, all now free and full-text searchable in the Library of Congress Chronicling America database. The selection deliberately included French- and Spanish-language papers, which matters for Acadiana and New Orleans families whose notices never ran in English. The Louisiana Digital Library, a statewide consortium site, adds photographs, maps, and documents from libraries and archives across the state.

The New Orleans Public Library holds the state's most comprehensive newspaper collection and an obituary index of roughly 550,000 cards covering 1804-1811, 1814-1815, 1860-1866, and 1876-1972, which is the first place to look for a New Orleans death before statewide registration. New Orleans city directories run from the early 1800s and are held by the City Archives and the Historic New Orleans Collection; our article on old city directories shows how to use them to date a house or follow a family through the city.

Census, military, and statewide indexes

Louisiana never took a state census, so the federal returns from 1810 to 1950 are the spine of any search. Before that, the French colonial censuses of 1699-1732 and a 1799 census of Spanish Louisiana survive and have been published. Slave schedules exist for 1850 and 1860 and mortality schedules for the same years.

• Louisiana State Archives online vital records index: statewide births over 100 years old, deaths over 50 years old, and Orleans Parish marriages over 50 years old, searchable by name.
• Confederate pension applications filed with the state are held by the State Archives.
• Succession and conveyance indexes are parish by parish; many Clerks of Court now post their indexes online, but coverage before the 1980s varies widely.
• Church registers of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Diocese of Baton Rouge have been published in multi-volume abstracts and are the standard substitute for pre-1911 vital records.

Researching a house or building in Louisiana

Louisiana's State Historic Preservation Office is the Division of Historic Preservation in the Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, at 1051 N. Third Street, Room 405, Baton Rouge. It administers the National Register program and publishes an interactive map so you can check whether a property is individually listed or sits inside a National Register historic district, and it maintains the Louisiana Historic Standing Structures Survey of documented buildings.

The Louisiana Historical Marker Program is run by the Louisiana Office of Tourism, with the Department of Transportation and Development erecting the bronze markers; nominations are accepted annually with a mid-May deadline. For a New Orleans building, the City Archives' map collection and its interactive map platform are the local starting point, and the HNOC's Vieux Carre survey files document French Quarter lots in depth. Start with our guides to finding out when your house was built and researching an old building, then move to the parish conveyance records and succession files described above.

Working with Louisiana historical societies

Louisiana's local history groups are organized by parish or by cultural region (Acadiana, the Florida Parishes, the Red River country) more often than by town. Many genealogical societies in the state publish parish record abstracts that are not online anywhere, so ask about publications before you ask for a lookup. Research libraries in New Orleans, including the Williams Research Center and the City Archives, require or strongly prefer appointments, and summer hurricane closures are a real possibility between August and October.

Additional Louisiana History Resources

• Louisiana State Archives - Secretary of State archives in Baton Rouge; online index to historical births, deaths, and Orleans Parish marriages
• Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation - State Historic Preservation Office, Baton Rouge
• Louisiana National Register program - Interactive map of National Register listings and historic districts
• Louisiana Historical Marker Program - Office of Tourism guidelines and application for state markers
• City Archives and Special Collections, New Orleans Public Library - New Orleans city government records, obituary index, maps, and genealogy collection
• The Historic New Orleans Collection - Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, manuscripts and maps of the Gulf South
• BLM General Land Office Records - Federal land patents and survey plats for Louisiana's public lands

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get a Louisiana birth certificate from before 1911?

Only Orleans Parish recorded births before statewide registration began in 1911, starting in 1790. Any birth more than 100 years old is a public record held by the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge, which indexes it online and sells certified copies. For other parishes, use Catholic or other church baptismal registers.

Where are Louisiana deeds recorded?

With the Clerk of Court in each parish, where they are called conveyances and indexed by vendor and vendee. In Orleans Parish the historic notarial acts that document sales are in the Notarial Archives of the Clerk of Civil District Court. First transfers of federal land are in the BLM General Land Office records.

Are old Louisiana newspapers online for free?

Yes. LSU Libraries' Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project put 128 Louisiana titles from 1836 to 1922, about 328,900 pages including French- and Spanish-language papers, into Chronicling America, the Library of Congress's free database.

What is a succession in Louisiana records?

A succession is Louisiana's civil-law equivalent of probate: the court proceeding that transfers a deceased person's property to heirs. Succession files are kept by the Clerk of Court in the parish where the estate was opened and are among the best sources for family relationships and property descriptions before 1911.