Puerto Rico Genealogy

United States Caribbean  Puerto Rico

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

See also FamilySearch Tutorials on Latin American Research.

Research Tools

 * Listing of all records collections for Puerto Rico available on FamilySearch.org

Wiki articles describing online collections are found at:


 * Puerto Rico Civil Registration Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Puerto Rico Catholic Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Puerto Rico, Records of Foreign Residents (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Jurisdictions
Sovereignty. Spain 1493, United States 1898.

Subdivisions. Puerto Rico is a territory of the US with commonwealth status. There are no first-order administrative divisions as defined by the US Government, but there are 78 municipalities (municipios) at the second order.

Major Repositories

 * National Archives at New York City

For Further Reading



 * Puerto Rico GenWeb
 * Puerto Rico Genealogical Resources
 * Puerto Rican Hispanic Genealogical Society
 * PRROOTS.com – Hispanic Genealogical Society

Did You Know?

 * 5,000 documents revealing court disputes in Puerto Rico are being scanned by the University of Connecticut's Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. The documents were acquired in 2000. Scanning began in June 2011 thanks to a $15,000 grant from the Center for Research Libraries. They plan to make all the documents available by May 2012. The documents date from 1844 forward and provide information about court disputes related to slaves, land and livestock.