El Salvador Quick Start Guide

El Salvador Quick Start Guide

Information about Records

 * All Records in El Salvador are in Spanish. If you are not familiar with Spanish, you should find someone who is. Another possibility is to use the new Internet translators, but they are difficult to get a good translation.
 * Most Records in El Salvador are written long hand. If you are not familiar with reading Spanish handwriting, click Here
 * Not all Records from El Salvador are online. To find the online El Salvador records, click Here
 * Not all the online Records from El Salvador are indexed. To find the online indexed El Salvador records, click Here
 * To find all El Salvador records on microfilm or microfiche, click Here

How to Search for ancestor if little information is known

 * Search for where your ancestor lived in El Salvador. This is key to finding the records.
 * Search family records you might already have, such as deeds, marriage licenses, birth or death certificates.
 * Ask family members about your ancestor. This could be cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, etc.
 * Search records of immigration into the Unites States. You may learn where they came from and when they arrived.
 * Search records of emigration from El Salvador. You may learn where they left from and where they planned to travel.

How to Search for ancestors if some information is known

 * Search the indexed records. Be sure to limit each search by country of El Salvador and the department, if you know it. This will eliminate similar records from other countries and other departments.
 * Search for the name of your ancestor. When the results appear, carefully go thru them. A result should match all the information that you know to be considered your ancestor. Do not assume it must be your ancestor just because they showed up in the results.
 * Search for Death records, then Marriage records and then Birth records. These records might lead to the names of their parents.
 * In Family Search, the El Salvador Civil Registration is mostly indexed. To search these records, try a variety of searches with the ancestor's name, or with parents' names, or just by parents' surnames.
 * If you don't know the names of the parents, but you know the name of the spouse and/or the names of some of his children, begin with a marriage search.
 * If you have an approximate birth date and place, search for Birth or Baptism records for one of their children,

How to Search for ancestors if none of the above works

 * Manually search the Image Only Historical Records. Some of these records were indexed in El Salvador either in the same record or a separate record. Look for that index first and save yourself time and effort. Otherwise, you will have to browse image by image through all the records, unless you can identify the locality or the time period to narrow down the search.
 * Manually search the records in the Family Search Catalog for El Salvador. Some of these El Salvador records are online, but most are only on microfilm or microfiche. They must be searched image by image, unless you can identify the locality or the time period to narrow down the search.
 * Very few of the El Salvador Catholic Church Records are indexed in Family Search, but they are online for an Image Only manual search. These records cover a large number of people and for a long period of time.

Additional Helps

 * The best El Salvador records to start searching
 * El Salvador Research Outline
 * The Spanish Script Tutorial
 * Spanish Genealogy Word List