6 Collections on FamilySearch.org You Might Be Overlooking

FamilySearch.org boasts thousands of niche record collections that can contain treasures about your ancestors, plus records from more than 90 countries all around the world—Canada, South Africa, Korea, Uruguay and even Iran, to name a few.

While not all are indexed and keyword searchable, these resources can pull through for your research in ways that others can’t. Here are six collections that you might be missing:

China

China Collection of Genealogies, 1239–2014: If you have ancestors from the Middle Kingdom, be sure to browse this massive stockpile of family histories dating to medieval times. The collection is organized by family name, then by country in historic China (e.g. China, Korea, Mongolia).

Ireland

Ireland Tithe Applotment Books, 1814–1855: A 1922 fire razed the Public Records Office in Dublin to the ground, taking with it centuries of your Irish ancestors’ records. You can take some comfort in this source, however, as it accounts for roughly 40 percent of Irish households.

Mexico

Mexico Baptisms, 1560–1950: Most censuses taken by the Mexican government vary in their coverage, availability and usefulness to genealogists, but church records provide a thorough look at your ancestors’ lives throughout the centuries. FamilySearch.org also has indexed collections of marriage and death records.

Puerto Rico (pre-1910)

Puerto Rico, Catholic Church Records, 1645–1969: Puerto Rico wasn’t included in a US census until 1910, but you can fill in research gaps with more than 600,000 records of baptism (bautismos), confirmation (confirmaciones), marriage (matrimonios) and death (defunciones).

United States

United States Confederate Officers Card Index, 1861–1865: The Civil War is be a touchy subject for some families, and resource can be hard to come by. But this resource has images of more than 200,000 Civil War veterans and their ranks. You can’t search it by keyword, but the collection is organized by officers’ last names.

United States Public Records, 1970–2009: We (and our ancestors) leave behind plenty of records without even realizing it. This indexed collection culls together names, addresses and phone numbers from public documents that you may have never thought to check like phone books and property tax assessments.