Nebraska, Church and Vital Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States Nebraska

What is in the Collection?
The collection consists of an index to selected baptisms, marriages, and deaths. The collection covers the years 1857 to 1957.

Coverage Map
To see a coverage map of FamilySearch's holdings of Nebraska marriages click here.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
The information varies by record. You may find any of the following:


 * Name of the primary individuals
 * Birth date and place
 * Death date and place
 * Marriage date and place
 * Names of other family members
 * Film number
 * Digital folder number
 * Image number
 * Marital status
 * Gender
 * Race
 * Age
 * Addresses
 * Date and place of burial
 * Names of witnesses
 * Name of officiator

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know:


 * The name of your ancestor
 * The birth date and birth place of your ancestor
 * The names of the parents of your ancestor
 * The names of other family members and their relationships

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information on the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the individuals in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. Keep in mind:


 * There may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * You may not be sure of your own ancestor’s name.
 * Your ancestor may have used different names, or variations of their name, throughout their life.
 * If your ancestor used an alias or a nickname, be sure to check for those alternate names.
 * Even though these indexes are very accurate they may still contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings, misinterpretations, and optical character recognition errors if the information was scanned.

For tips about searching on-line collections see the on-line article FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information given. Save a copy of the image or transcribe the information. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details or lead to other records about your ancestors. Remember this is only an index. As with any index, transcription errors may have occurred.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?
The parents' birth places can tell you former residences and can help to establish a migration pattern for the family.
 * Use the information to find the family in census records.
 * Use the information to find the family in church and land records.
 * The father’s occupation can lead you to other types of records such as employment or military records.
 * It is often helpful to extract the information on all children with the same parents. If the surname is unusual, you may want to compile birth entries for every person of the same surname and sort them into families based on the names of the parents. Continue to search the birth records to identify siblings, parents, and other relatives in the same or other generations who were born in the same county or nearby.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * Check for variant spellings of the names.
 * Look for a different index. Local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records.
 * Search the records of nearby localities.
 * Try alternative search methods such as only filling in the surname search box (or the given name search box) on the landing page leaving the other box empty and then click on search. This should return a list of everyone with that particular name. You could then browse the list for individuals that may be your ancestor.

Citing this Collection
When you copy information from a record, you should list where you found the information; that is, cite your sources. This will help people find the record again and evaluate the reliability of the source. It is also good to keep track of records where you did not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records. Citations are available for the collection as a whole and each record or image individually.

Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):