Howard County, Iowa Genealogy

United States Iowa  Howard County

Guide to Howard County Iowa ancestry, family history, and genealogy research page. Birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Parent County
There have been two Howard counties in Iowa. 1816-- The first Howard County was established. It became part of the Missouri Territory. 1851--Howard County was created 15 January 1851 from unorganized territory. It was attached to Floyd County prior to organization 15 September 1855. County seat: Cresco

Record Loss
December 1, 1876 -- Courthouse burned and many records were damaged.

For further information on researching in burned counties, see the following:


 * Burned Counties Research in FamilySearch Wiki
 * Michael John Neill, Burned Counties in Family History Circle

Places/Localities
Town/city records in the FamilySearch Catalog

Neighboring Counties
Chickasaw • Floyd • Mitchell • Winneshiek • Fillmore County, Minnesota • Mower County, Minnesota

Cemeteries

 * Calvary Cemetery, Riceville BillionGraves

Lutheran

 * Records of the American Lutheran Church, Cresco, in Evangelical Lutheran Church in America database at Archives.com ($).

Local Histories

 * Alexander, W E. History of Chickasaw and Howard counties, Iowa. Decorah, Iowa : Western Publishing Company, 1883.
 * Online at Internetarchive (Free) and at FamilySearch (Free)
 * Fairbairn, Robert Herd. History of Chickasaw and Howard Counties, Iowa. Chicago, Illinois : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1919.
 * Online at

Civil War

 * - 9th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, Company I
 * - 12th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, Company G
 * - 12th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, Company G :- 9th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, Company I

Newspapers
NewspaperArchive.com ($) has a large collection of digitized Iowa newspapers online. This database is sometimes free at libraries.