Step-by-Step South Dakota Research, 1880-Present

South Dakota ''Step-by-Step South Dakota Research, 1850-1905

1. Contact living relatives. 2. Online census records. 3. Births, marriages, and deaths online 4. Obituary and cemetery records online 5. Military records online. 6. School records online. 7. Immigration and naturalization records online. 8. Study clues. 9. Use more unusual sources.

Step 1. Find out everything possible from living relatives and their family records.
Every good genealogy project starts with finding all the clues that can be gathered from living relatives — both from their memories and from documents or memorabilia in their homes.

What information can relatives help with??
In order to extend research on ancestors, look for names, dates, and places. Any information about when and where a relative lived is a clue to a new record search. Be sure to ask questions that lead to that information, including about their occupations, military service, or associations with others, such as fraternal organizations. See also:


 * 50 Questions to Ask Relatives About Family History
 * Creating Oral Histories

What documents can relatives help with?
==Step 2. Find your ancestors in every possible census record, 1905-1945, online

Using the clues to lead to census record searches.

 * A census is a count and description of the population for a given date. A census took a "snapshot" of a family on a certain day.
 * For each person living in a household (depending on the year), their name, age, birthplace, relationship to head of household, place of birth for father and mother, citizenship status, year of immigration, mother of how many children and number of children living, native language, and whether they were a veteran of the military can be listed.
 * Searching for a family in census records every ten years can identify all the children in a family.
 * Searching in earlier census records to find someone as a child can identify parents.

Here are two documents you might find in a home search: a newspaper clipping and a family Bible record:


 * In the family Bible example on the right, Alber Mattson and Ida Thornburg were married in March of 1911, in Lead, South Dakota. Albert and Ida (1915) might show up in several successive censuses beginning with 1915 (Albert).


 * Click on the links in each example to see how these searches turned out. Notice the new information found. Later, these clues will help us find them in more records.

Using the census clues to lead to a birth certificate.

 * You can use what you learned from the census records to help you search for birth, marriage, and death records. Possibly the clues you find in the certificates will lead you back to the census records again for new names of family members.
 * For example, remember Ben W. Morrison, from his wife's obituary and the 1910 and 1920 censuses? Here is his birth record.
 * Here is the birth record of one of the sons of Albert Mattson and Ida Thornburg, who we found listed in their Bible and in several census records.
 * In the first sample above, C.E. Aves is 62 in the 1905 state census and born in Providence, Rhode Island. Subtracting his age from the date of the census, he was born in 1843. With this information, you can look for him in Rhode Island records. If you locate him as a seven year old in the 1850 census, either in Rhode Island, South Dakota, or another state, you may find him listed with his father and mother and other family members.
 * In the middle sample, Clarence A. Baker, is 39 years old in 1945 and was probably born in about 1906. With this information, we might find his birth record in South Dakota.
 * In the last sample, Geanell Baldwin was born in Iowa and 51 years old in 1945. Therefore, she was born in about 1894. You can search for her in Iowa records such as the 1900 census as a six year old most likely living with her parents.

Using the census clues to lead to a marriage certificate.

 * In the middle sample above, Clarence A. Baker's record states that he married Alice Simmons in 1938. Using this date and where they lived in the 1940 census, you can search for a marriage record that may have more information about the couple.

Step 3: Find birth, marriage, and death certificates for your ancestors and their children States, counties, or even towns in some states recorded births, marriages, and deaths. In addition to the child's name, birth date, and place of birth, a birth certificate may give the birthplaces of the parents, their ages, and occupations. A death certificate may give the person's birth date and place, parents' names and birthplaces, and spouse's name.

For Native American ancestors

 * If your ancestor was Native American, there are Indian Agency birth records and marriage records and death records. Click on each type of record in the previous sentence for numbers of microfilm records which can be searched at the FamilySearch Library or your local FamilySearch center.

Obituaries

 * South Dakota Obituaries Help. Click here to see an example. In this site, you will select a newspaper, then select the "Obituaries" link at that newspaper. Sometimes there is a required subscription fee.
 * ObituaryLinks South Dakota, index. This site gives lots of death record "how-to" advice before you come to obituary links. Scroll down quite a way to find the obituary links. 'Click [Step-by-Step South Dakota Research, 1905-Present here] to see at example.

Cemeteries
This example of an online cemetery record is from FindAGrave
 * South Dakota Cemetery Record Search.
 * South Dakota Cemetery Records at Interment.net. Click here to see an example.
 * Findagrave.com South Dakota Cemetery Records. Click here to see an example.
 * Billiongraves.com South Dakota Cemeteries.
 * USGenWeb South Dakota Tombstone Transcription Project. Click here to see an example.
 * I Dream of Genealogy South Dakota Cemeteries

Step 7: If your ancestor was an immigrant, search immigration and naturalization records online.
gration Online Genealogy Records]] for the time period when your ancestors arrived.

The United States kept copies of passenger lists starting in 1820 (except for Philadelphia which start in 1800). Passenger lists before this date are taken from shipping companies or extracted from newspapers or other records and are not complete for the time period.

In this example of a passenger list, you see at #22, the family of Eduard Hepper of Gross Liebenthal travelling to Java, South Daokta.

Naturalization (Citizenship) Records
Naturalization is the process of becoming a citizen. Records can include the immigrant's declaration of intent to become a citizen, petitions for citizenship, and final certificate of naturalization. Naturalization records after 1906 can show birth date and place, spouse's name, marriage date and place, and lists of children with their birth dates. Click here to view examples of declaration of intent records and the information they give.

South Dakota naturalization records could be recorded at the county court or the Federal District or Circuit Court. You must look for them in both locations. Try searching first in any county where the person lived, unless the census tells you the year they were naturalized, and you have evidence of where they lived that year. If you cannot locate them in the county records, try searching for them in the Federal courts. Step 8: Study each record for other possible searches You can now go through a process of working back and forth between all the different record types. Most researchers find clues in the census records that alert them to new certificates to obtain. The certificates then give them ideas of new facts to look for in the census. For example, when a marriage certificate gives you a wife's maiden name, you will then want to look for her in earlier censuses listed with her family as a child. When the census shows you her parents' names, you may then search for their death records. The death records might show their patents' names and take you back to the census to search for them. A naturalization record listing children's names might lead you back to birth certificate searches, and so on.

Step 9: Move ahead to the instructions for 1880-1905 and use searches described there, applying them to this time period.

The steps listed here should help you find a lot of information about your family, but they are not foolproof. Next, you will try some additional records described in the instructions for Step-by-step online South Dakota Research 1850--1905, many of which can also be applied to this time period if necessary, including, land, probate, and military records. Records about the next earlier generation of the family might give more clues to other searches also.

Step 10: If your ancestors were German, search Germans from Russia collections online

If Your Family Was German

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was a mass migration from German colonies in the Black Sea region of Russia to the state of South Dakota. Most individuals of German descent in South Dakota were Black Sea Germans from Russia. You can search a fairly complete collection of the parish registers of German churches in South Dakota at the Odessa3 website of the Germans from Russia Society for births, marriages, and deaths. Click here to see a sample of the records.