Wyoming Historical Societies

This directory lists 3 historical societies, museums, and archives in Wyoming, including the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody. The cards give each organization's location and website; the guide below covers the state agencies and university collections that hold most of Wyoming's paper trail.

Wyoming Territory was organized in 1868, carved from Dakota, Utah, and Idaho territories, and became the 44th state on July 10, 1890. Because it is a public-land state, almost every private parcel began as a federal homestead, cash sale, or railroad grant, so land research starts with the General Land Office rather than a state land office. Statewide birth and death registration dates only from 1909, but Wyoming has a compensating advantage: no county courthouse is known to have lost its records, so county marriage, deed, and probate books generally run unbroken from each county's organization.

Featured Historical Societies

Major repositories in Wyoming

The Wyoming State Archives, 2301 Central Avenue, Barrett Building, Cheyenne, holds state and county government records, more than 500,000 historical photographs searchable through its Luna photo database, oral history recordings, maps and directories, and the unrestricted vital records described below. Its finding aids are online in WyoCOMET, and it publishes research guides on topics from woman suffrage to historic property records. wyoarchives.wyo.gov

• Wyoming State Library, 2800 Central Avenue, Cheyenne, a few blocks from the Archives. It runs the free Wyoming Newspapers database, the Wyoming Places gazetteer of place names and histories, and digital collections of state publications. library.wyo.gov
• American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Centennial Complex, 2111 East Willett Drive, Laramie. Established in 1945 and one of the largest non-governmental archives in the country, with about 5,000 collections and 95,000 cubic feet: ranching and livestock records, energy and mining companies, emigrant trail accounts, Native American materials, and Wyoming military and political papers. uwyo.edu/ahc
• Wyoming State Historical Society, a donation-funded nonprofit in its current form since 1953, runs the Lola Homsher research grant, an online oral history database, and an awards program, and it is the best route to local historians in a given county. wyshs.org
• WyoHistory.org, the online encyclopedia of Wyoming history, has readable, footnoted articles on counties, towns, trails, and industries that make a good first orientation.

Wyoming vital records

A 1907 law created the State Bureau of Vital Statistics, took effect in January 1908, and was actually implemented in 1909, so birth and death certificates begin in July 1909, with births reaching good compliance only in the early 1920s. Statewide registration of marriages and divorces was added in 1941. Wyoming is a closed-record state, and custody depends on age:

• Vital Records Services, Wyoming Department of Health, 2300 Capitol Avenue, Hathaway Building, Cheyenne (Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday by appointment), issues restricted records to eligible relatives. Its website is health.wyo.gov under Vital Statistics.
• Wyoming State Archives holds the records that have become public: birth certificates after 100 years, and death, marriage, and divorce certificates after 50 years, under a policy adopted in 1995 that opens a new calendar year every January 1. These can be requested from the Archives without proof of relationship.
• Marriages before 1941: the County Clerk issued licenses from the time each county was organized, and compliance was high, so start at the courthouse.
• Divorces: filed in the district court of the county; look for the case file at the clerk of district court, and for the certificate at the Archives once 50 years have passed.

The Wyoming State Library's vital records guide at gowyld.libguides.com summarizes the laws and restriction dates.

Land, deed, and property records

Wyoming is a public-land state. The federal General Land Office opened its first Wyoming office in Cheyenne in 1870 and by 1890 had added Evanston, Buffalo, Lander, Sundance, and Douglas. Every original transfer from the United States - homestead, cash entry, military bounty warrant, desert land, or timber entry - produced a patent, and those patents, with survey plats and field notes, are searchable free at the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records site. Search by name or by township, range, and section.

• Homestead case files are not online. The patent gives you the land office and the entry number; with those you can order the full file from the National Archives, which includes the settler's own statements about the house, crops, and family.
• Deeds after patent are recorded by the County Clerk in each county, who serves as the county recorder; most county deed books begin in 1869 or at the county's organization, and several clerks now offer online document search. The FamilySearch Library holds microfilm of deeds and mortgages from about half of Wyoming's counties, roughly 1867-1961.
• The Wyoming State Archives' research guide on historic property records explains how to combine the GLO patent, county deed books, and tax rolls to date a ranch or town lot.

Read our guide to tracing a property's deed history for the courthouse side of the chain.

Newspapers and city directories

Wyoming Newspapers (wyomingnewspapers.org) is the state's free digital newspaper collection, built jointly by the Wyoming State Library and the University of Wyoming Libraries. It holds about 400 titles, more than 223,000 issues, and over 3 million pages, with coverage reaching back to 1849 and growing as the University of Wyoming's National Endowment for the Humanities grants add titles, which also flow into the Library of Congress's Chronicling America. Because Wyoming towns were small and newspapers printed local arrivals, land filings, brands, and obituaries, this single database often does more for a Wyoming family than the census.

City directories for Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper, and Sheridan are held by the Wyoming State Archives, which lists maps and directories among its collections, and by the American Heritage Center. Our guide to old city directories explains how to use them to follow an address year by year.

Census, military, and statewide indexes

• Federal census: the Green River and Fort Bridger area was enumerated in Utah Territory in 1850 and 1856, and most of present Wyoming fell in Nebraska Territory in 1860. Wyoming Territory appears in 1870 and 1880, and the state in every census from 1890 (lost) onward.
• Territorial and state censuses: the 1869 territorial census names residents; 1875 and 1878 censuses exist for the city of Cheyenne only. The 1915 and 1925 state censuses are statistical only and give no names, so do not expect a 1905 or 1915 name list as in neighboring states.
• State Archives indexes: Luna (photographs), WyoCOMET (finding aids), the Wyoming Oral History collections, and research guides on World War I service and woman suffrage.
• Military: the American Heritage Center holds first-hand accounts from Wyoming service members, and the Archives' World War I guide points to the state's own service records.
• Place names: the State Library's Wyoming Places database gives the location, history, and name origin of towns, post offices, and landmarks that have since vanished.

Researching a house, ranch, or building in Wyoming

The Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) is part of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources (wyoshpo.wyo.gov). Its National Register page lists Wyoming's listed properties by county, and its Cultural Records Office maintains WyoTrack, the state's site and survey database. The Centennial Farm and Ranch program documents agricultural properties held by one family for 100 years, with yearbooks that are themselves useful ranch histories.

• The Monuments and Markers program moved from the SHPO to Wyoming State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails in 2017; it maintains an online interactive map of roadside markers and monuments, many of them on the Oregon, Mormon, and Bozeman trails. wyoparks.wyo.gov
• Start a building history with the GLO patent, then the County Clerk's deed books, then the county assessor's tax rolls at the State Archives.
• Sanborn fire insurance maps exist for Wyoming's larger towns and are available free through the Library of Congress.

See how to find out when your house was built and how to research an old building for the general sequence, and how to find where someone is buried for the families connected to the property.

Working with Wyoming's local museums and societies

Wyoming has 23 counties, and in most of them the county itself runs the local museum, so the "historical society" you are looking for may be a county museum staffed by one or two people with winter hours. Call before a long drive; distances between county seats routinely exceed 100 miles. In Cheyenne, the State Archives, State Library, State Museum, and Vital Records Services are all within a few blocks of the Capitol, which makes a single day there unusually productive. The Wyoming State Historical Society's network of local members can point you to private collections, brand books, and ranch records that never reached an archive.

Additional Wyoming History Resources

• Wyoming State Archives - State and county records, photographs, and public-age vital records in Cheyenne
• Wyoming State Library - Wyoming Newspapers, Wyoming Places, and state publications
• Wyoming Vital Records Guide (State Library) - Laws, dates, and restriction periods for Wyoming vital records
• BLM General Land Office Records - Federal land patents, survey plats, and field notes for Wyoming
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office - National Register listings, cultural records, Centennial Farm and Ranch
• Wyoming Monuments and Markers - State Parks program with interactive map of historical markers
• American Heritage Center - University of Wyoming archives in Laramie; ranching, energy, trails, military
• Wyoming State Historical Society - Statewide society with research grants and oral histories
• WyoHistory.org - Online encyclopedia of Wyoming history
• FamilySearch Wiki: Wyoming Vital Records - Record start dates, custodians, and county record-loss notes

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Wyoming birth and death records open to the public?

Only after a waiting period. Wyoming is a closed-record state: birth certificates become public after 100 years and death, marriage, and divorce certificates after 50 years, with a new year opening each January 1. Public-age records are available from the Wyoming State Archives in Cheyenne; newer ones come only from Vital Records Services at the Department of Health, and only to eligible relatives.

How do I find my ancestor's Wyoming homestead?

Search the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records site by name to find the patent, which gives the legal description, land office, and entry number. Use that to order the homestead case file from the National Archives, then follow later sales in the County Clerk's deed books in the county where the land lies.

Is there a Wyoming state census that lists names?

Only the 1869 territorial census and the 1875 and 1878 censuses of the city of Cheyenne include names. The 1915 and 1925 state censuses are statistical summaries with no individuals. For most families the 1870 and 1880 territorial and later federal censuses, plus newspapers, are the working substitutes.

Where can I read old Wyoming newspapers for free?

Wyoming Newspapers, the joint project of the Wyoming State Library and the University of Wyoming Libraries, offers about 400 titles and more than 3 million pages dating back to 1849 at no charge, with full-text search. Titles digitized under the University's NEH grants also appear on Chronicling America at the Library of Congress.