Wisconsin Historical Societies

This directory lists 24 historical societies, museums, and archives in Wisconsin, led by the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, which doubles as the state archives, and including the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Circus World Museum in Baraboo. Wisconsin is unusual in that one institution, the Historical Society, holds the state archives, the state's newspaper collection, the pre-1907 vital records index, and the State Historic Preservation Office, so most research threads lead back to Madison or to one of the Society's regional Area Research Centers.

Wisconsin Territory was organized in 1836 and the state was admitted on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state. It is a public-land state: the federal General Land Office surveyed it between 1832 and 1866 and sold or granted the land, after which the county Register of Deeds took over. Counties, not towns, have always kept Wisconsin's local records, and the state had 72 of them by the early twentieth century, so the first question in any Wisconsin search is which county, and when it was formed.

Featured Historical Societies

The Wisconsin Historical Society and other major repositories

The Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison is both the statewide historical society and the custodian of Wisconsin's permanent state and local government records; it serves as the state archives. Its Library and Archives on the University of Wisconsin campus hold the state archives, county and municipal records, manuscripts, maps, and one of the largest newspaper collections in the United States (wisconsinhistory.org). The catalog is shared with the University of Wisconsin libraries, so a search at search.library.wisc.edu covers both.

The Society's reach extends through its Area Research Centers, a network of reading rooms at University of Wisconsin campuses and partner libraries around the state. Each center holds the original county and local government records for its region (court files, naturalizations, tax rolls, school records) and microfilm of the pre-1907 vital records, so a researcher in Eau Claire, La Crosse, Green Bay, or Platteville can see county records without driving to Madison.

• Wisconsin Historical Museum, on the Capitol Square in Madison, is the Society's public museum (listed in this directory).
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries host the shared catalog and the digital collections, including the public land survey notes described below.

Wisconsin vital records: the 1907 dividing line

Everything in Wisconsin vital records turns on one date: October 1, 1907, when statewide registration of births, marriages, and deaths began.

• From October 1907 to the present: the Wisconsin Vital Records Office of the Department of Health Services in Madison holds the statewide registry and issues certified copies of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces (dhs.wisconsin.gov/vitalrecords). The 72 county Register of Deeds offices, plus the city health offices in Milwaukee and West Allis, can also issue certificates for events in their jurisdiction, though not every record is available locally. The state office allows in-person genealogy research and uncertified copies; see its genealogy page at dhs.wisconsin.gov/vitalrecords/genealogy.htm.
• Before October 1907: registration was a county matter and compliance was spotty. The surviving pre-1907 birth, marriage, and death records for all counties are on microfilm at the Wisconsin Historical Society and its Area Research Centers, and the county Register of Deeds still holds the originals.
• The Pre-1907 Vital Records Index: the Historical Society's free online Wisconsin Genealogy Index covers roughly one million names from birth records dated 1852 to September 30, 1907, along with pre-1907 marriages and deaths and about 150,000 obituaries and biographical sketches. Type "Pre-1907 Vital Records" into the search box at wisconsinhistory.org to reach it, note the volume and page, and order a copy from the Society or the county.
• Divorces: kept by the clerk of circuit court in the county where the case was heard; older case files have often been transferred to the Area Research Center for that county.

Because so many Wisconsin families arrived from Germany, Norway, Poland, and Bohemia between 1840 and 1900, church registers are the practical substitute for missing civil records; search the Historical Society's catalog for microfilmed parish registers.

Land, deed, and property records in Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a public-land state. The federal General Land Office surveyed the state into townships and sections between 1832 and 1866 and then sold or granted the land through federal land offices. The original patent to a parcel is the first link in its chain of title.

• Federal patents: the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office records site provides a free name index to Wisconsin patents with images of the patent documents (glorecords.blm.gov).
• Original survey notes and plats: the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL), a state agency created in 1848, is the custodian of the surveyors' original field notes and plat maps from the 1832 to 1866 survey, along with state land sale records that mostly date from 1848 to 1900 (bcpl.wisconsin.gov). BCPL and the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections rescanned the entire series at high resolution; it is free online as Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records: Original Field Notes and Plat Maps with a map-based search (search.library.wisc.edu/digital/ASurveyNotes). The notes describe the land before settlement.
• Deeds after the patent: every subsequent deed, mortgage, and plat is recorded by the county Register of Deeds, generally from the year the county was organized, with grantor and grantee indexes. Most registers now offer online document search, usually through a vendor and sometimes for a fee.

Legal descriptions use the rectangular survey: a six-mile-square township divided into 36 one-mile sections. Our guide to tracing a property's deed history shows how to carry that description back through the grantor index to the original patent.

Wisconsin newspapers and city directories

The Wisconsin Historical Society's newspaper collection includes more than 4,000 titles, roughly 1,600 of them Wisconsin papers, and the Society describes itself as a major repository for Native American and African American newspapers and for foreign-language papers in Czech, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish. Its newspaper guide, with instructions for ordering microfilm by interlibrary loan, is at wisconsinhistory.org/wisconsinnewspapers.

In 2015 the Society joined the National Digital Newspaper Program and has since digitized more than 300,000 pages of Wisconsin newspapers for Chronicling America, the Library of Congress's free, keyword-searchable database, choosing titles that give geographic, ethnic, and political range across the state. Search Chronicling America by state and date, then use the Society's guide to find the microfilm for titles that have not yet been scanned.

City directories for Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha, Oshkosh, La Crosse, Green Bay, and Superior are held by the Historical Society and by the public library in each city, and many have been digitized by the libraries themselves. Our article on old city directories explains how to work from a name to a street address and back.

Territorial and state censuses and statewide indexes

Wisconsin has an unusually long run of non-federal censuses:

• Territorial censuses: 1836, 1838, 1842, 1846, and 1847, taken for the federal government to count the territory's population and held by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
• State censuses: 1855, 1865 (surviving for only six counties), 1875, 1885, and 1895, all listing heads of household only, and 1905, which names every member of the household. All are indexed and imaged on FamilySearch, and most on Ancestry.
• Federal censuses: 1840 for Wisconsin Territory, then 1850 through 1950 for the state.

The head-of-household state censuses are less useful for building families, but they place a name in a specific township in the years between federal counts, and the 1905 census is the only full-name enumeration between 1900 and 1910.

Statewide indexes to know:

• Wisconsin Genealogy Index (pre-1907 vital records, obituaries, and biographical sketches) at the Historical Society.
• Area Research Center county records: naturalization, court, and probate files indexed locally; the Society's catalog tells you which center holds which county.
• Civil War: the state's published roster of Wisconsin volunteers lists soldiers by regiment and company, and the Society's archives hold the related state military records.

Researching a house or building in Wisconsin

Wisconsin's State Historic Preservation Office is a division of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Its central tool is the Architecture and History Inventory (AHI), a free online database assembled from more than 50 years of SHPO surveys that holds records on more than 138,000 historic buildings, structures, and objects, each with a short description, construction date, style, and usually a photograph (Architecture and History Inventory). Search by address or municipality; if your building has an AHI number, you already have a surveyed date and style, and the full Wisconsin Historic Preservation Database, which the SHPO opens to researchers by appointment, adds the survey reports and National Register files behind it.

• National Register: the SHPO administers Wisconsin's nominations; ask for the nomination file if your property or district is listed, since it usually contains a researched date and owner history.
• State historical markers: the Wisconsin State Historical Markers program, run by the Society's Local History Outreach Program, has placed roughly 630 official markers across the state. The official list, with marker numbers, locations, and highway-map index codes, is a free PDF on the Society's site (Wisconsin State Historical Markers).
• Deeds and plats: the county Register of Deeds, then the BLM patent and the 1832 to 1866 survey notes for the land before the house.
• Maps: Sanborn fire insurance maps exist for Wisconsin cities and larger villages; check the Library of Congress's online Sanborn collection and the UW-Madison and Historical Society catalogs. County plat books from the 1870s onward show rural owners by parcel.

Our guides on dating a house and researching an old building lay out the order of operations, and finding a burial is the quickest route to a former owner's death date and probate file.

Working with Wisconsin's county and local historical societies

Wisconsin's local history network is built around county historical societies, many of which run a county museum and a research room, supplemented by village and township societies. The Wisconsin Historical Society's Local History Outreach Program works with affiliated societies statewide and can tell you which one covers a given county. The strongest hold family files, plat books, cemetery transcriptions, and clipping indexes for the county weekly. Before you write, check the relevant Area Research Center, because the county's original government records are more likely to be there than at the society.

Additional Wisconsin History Resources

• Wisconsin Historical Society - State archives, library, newspaper collection, and pre-1907 vital records index in Madison
• Wisconsin Historical Society Newspapers - Guide to 4,000+ titles, microfilm loans, and Chronicling America digitization
• Wisconsin Vital Records Office - Department of Health Services; certificates from October 1907 to the present
• Wisconsin Vital Records: In-Person Genealogy Research - Rules for genealogists using the state office in Madison
• Architecture and History Inventory (AHI) - State Historic Preservation Office database of 138,000+ surveyed buildings
• Wisconsin State Historical Markers - Official list of about 630 state markers and application details
• Board of Commissioners of Public Lands: Public Land Survey Records - Custodian of the 1832-1866 original survey field notes and plat maps
• Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records (UW Digital Collections) - Free high-resolution scans of the original field notes and plat maps with map search
• BLM General Land Office Records - Free index and images of federal land patents for Wisconsin

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find a Wisconsin birth, marriage, or death from before 1907?

Search the Wisconsin Historical Society's free Pre-1907 Vital Records Index (the Wisconsin Genealogy Index), which covers about one million births from 1852 to September 30, 1907, plus pre-1907 marriages and deaths. The index gives a volume and page; the microfilmed records are at the Society in Madison and at its Area Research Centers, and the county Register of Deeds holds the originals. Statewide registration only began on October 1, 1907.

Who records deeds in Wisconsin?

The Register of Deeds in each of Wisconsin's 72 counties, from the date the county was organized. The original transfer from the federal government is a land patent, indexed free at the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office records site, and the surveyors' 1832 to 1866 field notes and plat maps are online through the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands and UW-Madison Digital Collections.

What state censuses did Wisconsin take?

Territorial censuses in 1836, 1838, 1842, 1846, and 1847, and state censuses in 1855, 1865 (six counties only), 1875, 1885, 1895, and 1905. Only the 1905 census names every household member; the earlier ones list heads of household. All are on FamilySearch, and the originals are at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Where can I search old Wisconsin newspapers for free?

On Chronicling America, where the Wisconsin Historical Society has contributed more than 300,000 digitized pages since joining the National Digital Newspaper Program in 2015. For the roughly 1,600 Wisconsin titles in the Society's collection that are not yet online, its newspaper guide at wisconsinhistory.org/wisconsinnewspapers explains how to borrow microfilm through interlibrary loan.