City Guide: Los Angeles Genealogy

A red pushpin marks the location of Los Angeles on a detailed road map of Southern California.

With Hollywood’s affinity for cosmetic surgery, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the face of Los Angeles has changed many times over its history. Founded in 1781 by the Spanish, Los Angeles became a part of Mexico in 1821, then the United States in 1850 when California joined the union.

From her early days as a tiny pueblo of 44 pobladores (townspeople), the City of Angels has grown to 3.8 million Angelenos, making it the nation’s second-most populous city (surpassed only by New York). Digging into the city’s multicultural roots can be both a challenge and a fiesta—these tips and resources will get you started with your Los Angeles genealogy research.

A City of Many Madres

Like most major US cities, Los Angeles was home to American Indians long before the arrival of European explorers and settlers. Both the Tongva and Chumash may have witnessed the 1542 expedition of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese captain sailing the Pacific coast for the Spanish crown, which claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire. Cabrillo and crew wintered over on Santa Catalina Island, but it wasn’t until 1769 that Europeans returned, this time with soldiers and missionaries led by Gaspar de Portolà and Juan Crespí, a Franciscan missionary.

In 1771, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area, was directed to be built by Franciscan friar Junípero Serra. A group of 44 settlers, known as “Los Pobladores” founded the pueblo (town) on 4 September 1781, calling it El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels). Of these settlers, at least 20 were African or part-African; one was Chinese; two were Spanish; and the rest were Native American or part-Native American.

Tips for Reading Civil Registry Records in Spanish

Researching ancestors from Spanish-speaking countries is difficult if you don’t know the language. Here are tools to help you get past the language barrier.

The settlement of Los Angeles remained under Spanish rule until New Spain gained independence in 1821, existing within the new Mexican Republic. But Mexico’s claim was short-lived. During the war, Los Angeles was occupied by marines from the US, resulting in the Siege of Los Angeles. Mexico ceded California to the United States following the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848. The Mexican Cession of Los Angeles and the region of Alta California was finalized with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

California was admitted as a state in 1850 under the Compromise of 1850, in which they had already decided to be a free state: the constitutional convention of 1849 unanimously abolished slavery in the state. Though, there was a minority of Confederate sympathizers in Los Angeles, the city as a whole remained tied to the Union.

While the Civil War ravaged the eastern United States, California remained virtually untouched, and in the postwar era was poised to boom. In two decades, Los Angeles’ population grew from 5,000 to 50,000, thanks in part to the arrival of the railroad and the discovery of oil. By 1900, the city had grown to more than 100,000 people.

With the turn of the century, the movie and aviation industries flocked to LA, and in 1932, the booming metropolis surpassed the 1 million mark.

Today, Los Angeles is a melting pot of Caucasian, African-American, Asian and Latino cultures, with more than 40 percent of the population speaking Spanish.

Angeleno Access

You’ll rely on these records and resources to trace your Los Angeles ancestors:

Vital records

Text contributed by Katharine Andrew in September 2025

Statewide registration of births and deaths did not begin until July 1905, but Los Angeles County records start several decades earlier. You can order birth, death and marriage records through the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. Privacy restrictions limit certified copies of vital records to the registrant or close family members, but genealogists can order informational copies.

Birth records

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk maintains birth records in the county from 1877 to present. You can order copies of birth records on the website.

FamilySearch’s “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994” is a searchable and imaged collection. It contains birth records and indexes for Los Angeles dating from 1849 through 1935. Note that for Los Angeles County, the collection is split into separate film sets for different cities in Los Angeles County. Ancestry.com’s “California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980” contains birth records for Los Angeles County for 1893 to 1906.

Marriage records

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk maintains marriage records in the county from 1852 to present. You can order copies of marriage records on the website.

Ancestry.com’s “California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980” contains marriage records for Los Angeles County from 1855 to 1937, while FamilySearch has Los Angeles marriages in both the “California, Marriages, 1850-1945” and in “California, County Marriages, 1849-1957” collections.

FamilySearch also has an index to marriages from 1960 to 1985, which is also available on Ancestry.com. See also the Ancestry.com’s “California, U.S., Marriage Index, 1949-1959” and “Web: Western States Marriage Index, 1809-2016.”

For earlier marriages, see the Matrimonial Investigation Records of the San Gabriel Mission on the Claremont Colleges Digital Library. These marriage records span from 1788 to 1861.

For divorces, Ancestry.com has an index database for divorces filed in 1966 to 1984.

Death records

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk maintains death records in the county from 1877 to present. You can order copies of marriage records on the website.

FamilySearch’s “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994” contains death records and indexes for Los Angeles dating from 1874 through 1978. Note that for Los Angeles County, the collection is split into separate film sets for different cities in Los Angeles County. Ancestry.com’s “California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980”contains death records for Los Angeles County from 1873 to 1905.

The County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner has a database of coroner’s inquests from 1991 to present searchable on their website. Copies of the documents can be purchased on the site. Ancestry.com also has a version of this database, but only for 1991 to 2024.

Church and mission records

Text contributed by Katharine Andrew, September 2025

The Huntington’s “Database of Baptism, Marriage, and Burial Records from California Missions” contains information in California mission registers from 1769 to 1850, including the baptism, marriage and burial records for Native Californians, soldiers and settlers of Alta California. It is accessible in the Early California Population Project Database.

There are many more church records that are available online on FamilySearch, Ancestry.com and other websites. If you cannot find records online, contact the church to see if they have records on site.

Some notable online collections that include Los Angeles records:

Ancestry.com’s “U.S., Evangelical Free Church of America, Swedish American Church Records, 1842-1947”
Ancestry.com’s “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records, 1781-1969”
Ancestry.com’s “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Swedish American Church Records, 1800-1952”
Ancestry.com’s “U.S., Hinshaw Index to Selected Quaker Records, 1680-1940”
Ancestry.com’s “U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970”
FamilySearch’s “Los Angeles County, California baptismal records, 1771-1873/ Genealogical Records Committee of the California State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution”

Court records

Text contributed by Katharine Andrew, September 2025

Original records of probate and court records filed in the Los Angeles County Court and District Court from 1850 to 1900 and civil case files from 1850 through June 1910 are stored at The Huntington. Many of these are digitized on The Huntington’s Digital Library.

FamilySearch’s “Los Angeles County, California, miscellaneous records 1854-1904” collection includes land and probate, maps, wills, bonds, farming, court records, business incorporations, mining, land plat and other miscellaneous records. Ancestry.com also has miscellaneous records from Los Angeles County in its “California, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1850-1953”

Records of the United States Northern District Circuit Court from 1854 to 1938 are digitized on FamilySearch.

County court records, including unlimited civil, divorce, family law, criminal felony, probate and juvenile cases from 1910 through 2004 are stored at the Los Angeles County Archives and Records Center.

Land records

Pre-Mexican independence, land was granted to settlers by Spain, then from 1822 to 1846, Mexico became the land grantor. These early records are available at the California State Archives and Bancroft Library. Ancestry.com’s “California, U.S., Spanish Land Records, 1784-1868” is a copy of the California State Archives’ collection. While the site’s “California, U.S., Private Land Claim Dockets, 1852-1858” collection contains dockets primarily show the actions taken regarding the claims after they were confirmed as valid by the US.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk maintains real estate records in Los Angeles County since 1851 to present. They are available for viewing only in-person at the Norwalk Headquarters. Unfortunately, there is no online access to real estate records and the office, by policy, does not accept telephone requests for index searches. They can be ordered online for a fee through the website.

Censuses

The first US federal census enumerating Los Angeles was 1850. Pre-statehood lists (padrones) of Spanish, Mexican and Indian residents were published by the Historical Society of Southern California in The Quarterly volumes 15, 18, 41-43, 54, and include Los Angeles censuses of 1790, 1836 and 1844 (available on FamilySearch Library microfilm or through JSTOR). The 1833 and 1844 padrones are also available through FamilySearch Library’s Digital Library.

You can access the California state census of 1852 on FamilySearch, which includes information on the entire household, as well as the Los Angeles city census of 1897.

Cemeteries

Los Angeles has several old cemeteries, most still operational. It’s believed that the first cemetery was in the Old Plaza area, adjacent to the Plaza Church at 521 N. Main St. Prior to its establishment in 1822, burials had taken place in the two missions in the area: San Gabriel Arcangel (1771) and Mission San Fernando Rey España (1797). The oldest existing cemetery, Evergreen, opened in 1877 and is the final resting place of many Los Angeles pioneers. You’ll find a database of Evergreen burials on Find A Grave. Search several other local cemeteries, including the Los Angeles National Cemetery, at Interment.net.

Newspapers

Decades of Los Angeles newspapers are available free online. The California Digital Newspaper Collection includes the Los Angeles Herald from 1874 to 1910, along with the San Francisco Call and the Sacramento Daily Union. You can search the database by keyword and date, or browse through each issue. The Los Angeles Times offers its own searchable archive, beginning with issues from 1881.

City directories

FamilySearch holdings include Los Angeles head-of-household directories from 1873 to 1935 (film number 1376980), searchable in its “United States City and Business Directories, ca. 1749 – ca. 1990” collection. You can also access the many directories, including the 1915 city directory at the Internet Archive, and look through many 20th-century directories on the Los Angeles Public Library website.

Maps

The Library of Congress has a special exhibition called Los Angeles Mapped, with many of the images available online. One of the earliest is a 1639 map drawn for the Dutch West India Co. showing California as an island (as it was believed to be then). Next, turn to the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection to see a hand-drawn 1880 map of the city. View early 20th-century Los Angeles maps in the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. The city website has interactive maps.

In 2009, The Los Angeles Times’ launched its “Mapping L.A.” project and identified 158 cities and unincorporated areas within Los Angeles County. It formally drew boundary lines for 114 neighborhoods within the city. Its website contains detailed maps that cover the 4,000 square miles of Los Angeles County.

Whether your Angeleno ancestor was an early adventurer or a recent transplant, you’re sure to dig up his or her history with the Golden State’s great resources.

Fast Facts

Settled: 4 September 1781
Incorporated: 4 April 1850
Nicknames: LA, City of Angels, La-La Land, the Big Orange
State: California
County: Los Angeles
Area: 468 square miles
State Motto: Eureka (Greek for “I have found it”)
Primary historical ethnic groups: Latino, African-American, Asian
Primary historical industries: railroads, oil, shipping, entertainment
Famous residents: Tyra Banks, Candice Bergen, Jeff Bridges, Alton Brown, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Marilyn Monroe, Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sally Ride, Adlai Stevenson, Earl Warren

Population

1850: 1,610
1900: 102,479
1950: 1.97 million
Current: 3.8 million

Timeline

~8,000 BCE: The Chumash and Tongva tribes called the Los Angeles Basin home for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.
1542: Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sails from Catalina Island to San Pedro Bay, along the California coast. Cabrillo and his crew spend the winter on Catalina Island. They claim the area for the Spanish Crown.
14 July 1769-24 January 1770: The first recorded European exploration of the interior of present-day California, the Portolá expedition, is led by Gaspar de Portolá, is conducted for the Spanish Empire. It leads to the founding of Alta California and solidified Spain’s territorial claims in the region.
1771: The original Mission Vieja, also known as the Old Mission, is built as the first Spanish mission in the San Gabriel Valley.
1775: The original Mission Vieja is destroyed in a flash flood and forced the priest to move it to a new location five miles to the north, building the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel.
4 September 1781: A group of 44 settlers, known as “Los Pobladores,” founded the pueblo (town) on 4 September 1781, calling it El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels).
1818: The Avila Adobe, the oldest still-standing residence in Los Angeles is constructed by prominent ranchero Francisco José Avila, mayor of Los Angeles in 1810.
28 September 1821: The Mexican Empire declares independence from Spain.
1846-1848: Mexican-American War.
6 August 1846: US Navy military force lands in San Pedro and sets up camp to plan the capture of Los Angeles.
23-30 September 1846: The Siege of Los Angeles was a rebellion of armed Mexican civilians against the occupation of the Pueblo de Los Ángeles by the US Marines. The 150 militia members defeated the 48 marines, forcing the Americans out of Los Angeles.
10 January 1847: Battle of La Mesa results in Los Angeles being taken by US forces.
13 January 1847: Treaty of Cahuenga is signed, ending American military action.
2 February 1848: Mexico cedes California to the US with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hdalgo. Los Angeles becomes part of the US territory.
1849: First survey of Los Angeles by the US government leads to real-estate boom. The streets are renamed from Spanish to English.
4 April 1850: Los Angeles is incorporated.
9 September 1850: California becomes the 30th US state.
1850: Los Angeles County is established.
1851: The Los Angeles Star, the city’s first newspaper, begins publication.
1858: The US government begins issuing land patents that confirm Spanish and Mexican-era rancho land grants within Los Angeles County.
1859: Los Angeles County votes to secede from California to form the Territory of Colorado, however, Congress throws out this secession proposal the following year amid the Civil War.
1869: Railroad connects Los Angeles with San Pedro Bay.
1874: Los Angeles gets its first streetcar.
1876: The Southern Pacific Railroad’s San Francisco-Los Angeles line begins operating the city’s first connection to the transcontinental railroad.
1880: The University of California opens.
1887: The peak of the Southern California real estate boom. Many towns in Los Angeles County are laid out and more people move into the city. The boom collapses the next year.
1895-1916: The city annexes the communities of Highland Park (1895); Garvanza (1899); Colegrove (1909); Arroyo Seco (1912); Bairdstown and Palms (1915); and Occidental and Westgate (1916).
1928: Los Angeles City Hall is built.
10 March 1933: The 1933 Long Beach earthquake takes place south of downtown Los Angeles, resulting in 115 to 120 fatalities and an estimate of $40 million ($993 million in 2025) in damages.
1936: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles is established.
February-March 1938: Los Angeles Flood of 1938 results in 113 to 115 fatalities. It is considered a 50-year flood and caused $78 million ($1.74 billion in 2025) in damages.
1941: Los Angeles Airport is established.
1942: Japanese-Americans are moved to internment camps.
1965: 34 people die in the Watts Riots.
1976: The Los Angeles City Historical Society is formed.
1984: Los Angeles hosts the summer Olympics. Los Angeles surpasses Chicago as the second largest city in the US.
1992: Rodney King trial verdict leads to six-day riot and 53 deaths
2002: Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is built.
2009: The Los Angeles Times’ Mapping L.A. project identifies 158 cities and unincorporated areas within Los Angeles County and drew boundary lines for 114 neighborhoods within the city.

Toolkit

Websites

Publications

Historical Atlas of California: With Original Maps by Derek Hayes (University of California Press, 2007)
Land in California by W. W. Robinson (University of California Press, 1979)
Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels (University of California Press, 2011)
The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist (Crown, 2019)
So Far from God: The US War With Mexico, 1846-1848 by John S. D. Eisenhower (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000)
Southern California Quarterly published by the Historical Society of Southern California since 1884. Back issues are available for Scholar level members of the society through the website or on JSTOR.

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A City of Many Madres