Kansas, United States Genealogy

United States   Kansas Welcome to the Kansas page, the Sunflower State Most unique genealogical features:
 * KS was often a staging area for the Santa Fe, Oregon, Mormon, and California trails.
 * The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway was the 2nd transcontinental railroad.

Counties
Click on the map below to go to a county page. Hover over a county to see its name. To see a larger version of the map, click here. Extinct, Renamed, or Ceeded Counties:  Arapahoe (1855) | Arapahoe (1883) | Billings | Breckenridge | Broderick | Buffalo | Calhoun | Davis | Dorn | El Paso | Foote | Fremont | Garfield | Godfrey | Howard | Hunter | Kansas | Lykins | Madison | McGee | Montana | Oro | Otoe | Peketon | Richardson | Sequoyah | Seward (old) | Shirley | St. John | Washington (old) | Weller | Wise

Major Repositories
Kansas Historical Society· Wichita State University Library· University of Kansas Library· National Orphan Train Complex· National Archives Central Plains Region (Kansas City)· Family History Library

Migration Routes
Abilene Trail· California Trail· Cherokee Trail· Chisholm Trail· Great Western Cattle Trail· Jones and Plummer Trail· Leavenworth Pike's Peak Express· Mormon Trail· Oregon Trail· Santa Fe Trail· Smoky Hill Trail· Texas Road or Shawnee Trail· Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway

Featured Content
The Kansas Historical Society holds one of the largest newspaper collections in the United States. They have almost every newspaper that was printed in Kansas (well over 61,000 volumes) and more than 12,000 out-of-state-volumes. These papers are in the Newspaper and Census Division, and many are on microfilm.

Research Tools

 * The The Kansas GenWeb Project provides county information about formation date, parent county, county seat, bibliography, cemeteries, census, churches, towns, history, look ups, obituaries, queries, repositories, surname registry, and many Internet links.

Wiki articles describing online collections are found at:


 * Kansas Births and Christenings (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Kansas Deaths and Burials (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Kansas Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Kansas County Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Did You Know?

 * The Kansas Historical Society at http://www.kshs.org/ has several important facilities for genealogists. The Reference Library houses printed materials and the Department of Archives maintains original records of Kansas government jurisdictions, newspapers, and other historical documents. The Manuscript Department has unpublished papers, maps, and photographs.
 * The Kansas Historical Society announced the launch of Kansas Memory, an ongoing digital project. This online site will feature the largest collection of photographs and manuscripts from Kansas history.
 * Before 1900 the largest religious groups in Kansas were the Methodist-Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Disciples of Christ. Read more about the availability of church records in the Kansas Church Records article.[[Image:Kansas flag.png|right|180px|Kansas flag.png]]

Help Wanted
In order to make this wiki a better research tool, we need your help! Many tasks need to be done. You can help by: