Daviess County, Missouri Genealogy

United States Missouri  Daviess County

County Courthouse
County Library has birth and death record on microfilm 188301893 and local census 1876; Recorder of Deeds has land records; Probate Court has probate records

History
The History of Daviess County, Missouri (1882) is available online free from Google Books.

Parent County
1836--Daviess County was created 29 December 1836 from Ray County. County seat: Gallatin

Boundary Changes
See an interactive map of Daviess County border changes at N2Genealogy.

Places/Localities

 * Arthur Paul Moser has short descriptions of towns in Daviess county, many of them no longer exist.


 * The State Historical Society of Missouri has information on historical Missouri place names for all Missouri Counties.

Neighboring Counties

 * Caldwell
 * Dekalb
 * Gentry
 * Grundy
 * Harrison
 * Livingston

Cemeteries
Steve Reid's page has about 70 transcriptions of Daviess county cemeteries. Many of these transcriptions are current only to the 1970s. The page also includes a historical description of all known Daviess county cemeteries and directions to their location.

Lanita Sconce Smith's page and the Daviess County Historical Society sort Daviess county burials by name.

Find A Grave has many Daviess county cemetery transcriptions.

Here is another page of Daviess county cemeteries for Clear Creek, Creekmore, Enyart, Everly, Foley, Frazier, Guthrie, Hays, Hemry/Payne, Hill, Lick Fork, Lock Springs, McCrary, Muddy, Old Union, Pell, Pilot Grove 1, Reid (partial), Trosper, Trotten, and Weldon.

Here are transcriptions of the Winston and Muddy cemeteries. Other transcriptions of Muddy cemetery are here and here.

The Missouri Tombstone Transcription project has links to McCrary, Lick Fork, Creekmore, and Old Scotland cemeteries.

Brenda Abplanalp and Virgil Givens abstracted the Wooderson cemetery.

Census
The 1876 State Census for Daviess county is available at Ancestry.com or on microfilm ($15) from the Missouri State Archives.

Church
Trails.com has a partial list of historic and current churches in Daviess county. A slightly different list is given by the USGS database.

Primitive Baptist Library in Carthage, IL maintains a Daviess county, Missouri page on their website.

Land
There are two types of patents. Those issued by the state and those by the Federal Government.

The Missouri Secretary of State sponsors a site with land patents for Daviess county 1831-1969.

For patents issued by the Federal Government for land in Daviess county click here. Enter Missouri and your ancestors surname. If you find a record for your ancestor you will be able to download a PDF of the patent. You should also consider ordering the associated case file.

Local Histories
The Daviess County Historical Society lists a variety of county and family histories and other resources.

Maps

 * This map shows Daviess County townships and known cemeteries within each.


 * Interactive map of Daviess County townships (Histopolis)


 * The University of Missouri Digital Library has digital copies of Missouri county plat books (ca. 1930) for all Missouri counties including Daviess County. The city of St. Louis is not included in this collection.

Military
Names of soldiers are engraved in the pavement bricks of the war memorial near the courthouse.

Newspapers

 * The Genealogy Department of the Daviess County Library, given a specific date, will do lookups in the newspapers listed on their website for a small fee.


 * The Archives of The Chillicothe Constitution Tribune (1889-2009) provides free access to their newspapers online. Their newspapers covered local news that included residents from Daviess County communities.

Taxation
As of Mar 2013 neither the Missouri State Archives, nor the FHL appear to have early tax lists in their microfilm collections for Daviess County. So if they exist, they are probably held by the county clerks office at the courthouse.

Marriages

 * Daviess county Marriages 1837 - 1899

Deaths

 * The Missouri Secretary of State has Missouri Death Certificates more than 50 yrs old starting in 1910, a few earlier. Some certificates were never completed or filed, others have creative spellings. The information is only as good as the informant could recall at the time.

Societies and Libraries
There is a Daviess county Genealogical Societyand a Daviess County Historical Society. The Daviess County Library in Gallatin also has genealogical records. Other Missouri libraries with Daviess county records include the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, the Missouri State Historical Library in Columbia and the State Archives in Jefferson City.

Family History Centers

 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers
 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers

Web Sites

 * USGenWeb project. Has maps, county and family history links, and other information.
 * Rootsweb Daviess County Missouri