Venezuela Quick Start Guide

Venezuela: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location unknown
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 Venezuela and the name of the state if known. If there are no results, the patron 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, try to contact family members who might have the information you need. This could be older aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

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

FamilySearch Browse Images: If there are no results from your previous search for your ancestor or any siblings, you will have to browse images for the locality. Civil Registration began in 1873 in Venezuela. Catholic Church records are also a good choice as they cover all time periods. If you can find your ancestor in both record types, that is best as you will get more information to advance your pedigree.

FamilySearch Catalog: Not all records for Venezuela 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 Venezuela and you know the place). Or you can begin with a search for the birth/baptism record for one of their children (if you have an approximate birth date and place).

Finding a locality

 * Google
 * Wikipedia
 * Try a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog for Venezuela Gazetteers

Online resources
Sologenealogia.com--Venezuela has some indexed records for Venezuela. Click on Venezuela, the name of the state (nombre del estado) > Datos > Apellidos (surnames) in the drop down box under Buscar, and the click on the first letter of the surname desired and then choose the surname desired.