Dominican Republic Quick Start Guide

Dominican Republic Quick Start Guide

Dominican Republic: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location unknown
[https://www.familysearch.org/hr/search FamilySearch Indexed Records: Try searching in the indexed records for the name of the ancestor if they were born before 1900. Limit your results to the country of the Dominican REpublic and the name of the province if known. If no results, you will have to find more information from home sources or by asking family members.

Contact family members: If you do not have even a minimal amount of information AND have no idea of where and when to look, you need to contact family members who might have that information. This could be older aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

Dominican Republic: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location and names of parents, children, or spouse are known
FamilySearch Indexed Records: Try searching first in indexed records. Try a variety of searches with your ancestor's name, or with parents' names, or just by parents' surnames AND using the option to limit locality by country Dominican Republic and the name of the province in the Dominican Republic.

FamilySearch Browse Images: If there are no results from the previous search for the ancestor or any siblings, you will have to browse images for the locality. Civil Registration began in 1828 in the Dominican Republic. Catholic Church records are also a good choice as they cover all time periods. If you can find the ancestor in both record types, that is best as you will get more information.

FamilySearch Catalog: Not all of the records for the Dominican Republic are online, be sure to check the catalog before giving up on finding records.

Research Strategies
Who to search for? 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 they married in the Dominican Republic). Or begin with a search for the birth/baptism record for one of their children (if you have an approximate birth date and place).

There are a few compiled genealogy books for the Dominican Republic:


 * Carlos Larrazabal Blanco, (Santo Domingo: Academia Dominicana de la Historia, 1967-1980), FS Library INTL 972.93 D2L, 9 volumes. Also available on Microfilm 1162484, Items 1-9.
 * Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, (Ciudad Trujillo, Mexico: Editora Montalvo, 1959), FS Library INTL 972.93 D3r.

Finding a Locality

 * Google
 * Wikipedia (The Spanish version works the best)
 * Try a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog for Domincan Republic Gazetteers.

Online Resources
For other online resources please review the Wiki article Hispanic Genealogy Resources Online.