Maryland Genealogy

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Maryland Genealogy Research Guide

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Maryland Genealogy Research Guide

Quick Facts

Maryland was one of the original thirteen colonies and became the seventh state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, on April 28, 1788. It began as a proprietary colony of the Calvert family, the Lords Baltimore, under a charter of 1632, and was first settled at St. Mary's City in 1634. What makes Maryland unusually rewarding is that its records are unusually centralized: the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis holds original and microfilmed records — colonial and county alike — reaching back to the founding.

• Capital: Annapolis. The seat of government moved from St. Mary's City to Annapolis in 1694–1695.
• Statehood: April 28, 1788, the seventh state, formed from the proprietary Province of Maryland.
• Counties: 23, plus the independent city of Baltimore, a county-equivalent since 1851. The first county, St. Mary's, dates to 1637; the last, Garrett, to 1872.
• Land type: Maryland is a state-land state, not a federal (public-domain) state. Original title passed from the Lords Baltimore, and later from the State of Maryland, by patent through a sequence of warrant, survey, certificate, and grant, so there are no federal General Land Office records for Maryland — original grants are documented at the state level and later transfers at the county level.
• Nickname and motto: the Old Line State (also the Free State); the state motto is Fatti maschii, parole femine ("Strong deeds, gentle words").
• Where records live: most genealogical records — deeds, probate, and marriages — are kept at the county level (the Clerk of the Circuit Court, and the Register of Wills for the Orphans' Court), with Baltimore City keeping its vital records separately; the Maryland State Archives centralizes an unusually complete set of these records and of the colonial originals.

Libraries and Archives

Maryland's collections are more centralized than most states'. The Maryland State Archives in Annapolis holds state-government records together with original and microfilmed county records from across Maryland, while Baltimore holds the municipal and immigrant records; county courthouses, public libraries, and local societies keep material for their own areas. The principal Maryland repositories include:

• Maryland State Archives (Annapolis) — the central repository: land patents and county deeds, colonial and county court records, probate, vital-record indexes, tax and assessment rolls, military service records, and the records of the proprietary government.
• Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore), home of the State Library Resource Center and its Maryland Department — local histories, published genealogies, newspapers, city directories, and manuscripts.
• Baltimore City Archives — the city's municipal records, including vital-record materials, court and almshouse records, and city directories.
• Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly the Maryland Historical Society) — the H. Furlong Baldwin Library, with one of the largest manuscript collections in the state, including the Calvert papers and extensive family papers.
• National Archives at Philadelphia — the federal branch serving Maryland: federal court, naturalization, passenger-arrival, and military records.
• Associated Archives at St. Mary's Seminary & University — the archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, holding the oldest Catholic sacramental registers in the country.
• Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture and the Jewish Museum of Maryland — leading repositories for African American and Jewish family and community history.
• The FamilySearch Library and its worldwide FamilySearch Centers hold extensive Maryland microfilm and digital collections, and the county Clerks of the Circuit Court, Registers of Wills, and local historical and genealogical societies hold records for their own areas.

Major Websites

These sites host digitized Maryland records and indexes. Subscription sites are marked ($).

• FamilySearch — free; the backbone finding aid, with the FamilySearch Wiki, catalog, and large digitized collections of Maryland vital, land, probate, court, church, and immigration records.
• Ancestry ($) — extensive Maryland vital, census, naturalization, military, probate, and tax collections.
• MyHeritage ($) — Maryland vital records, censuses, directories, and immigration collections.
• Findmypast ($) — Baltimore Catholic parish registers, Baltimore passenger lists, and the colonial probate index.
• Archives of Maryland Online — free; the proceedings of the colonial and state legislatures, session laws, court and military volumes, and other record series from 1637 forward.
• Maryland State Archives Guide to Government Records — free; the series-level guide and gateway to the Archives' online indexes and images.
• mdlandrec.net — free with registration; digitized county land records for the whole state.
• plats.net — free; survey and subdivision plats.
• Legacy of Slavery in Maryland — free; a database of manumissions, certificates of freedom, runaway advertisements, and related court records.
• Digital Maryland — free; digitized photographs, documents, and local-history collections from libraries across the state.
• Chronicling America — free; the Library of Congress newspaper archive, with many Maryland titles.
• Internet Archive and HathiTrust — free; digitized Maryland histories, published record abstracts, and law books.
• Find a Grave and BillionGraves — free; cemetery listings, photographs, and transcriptions.
• Reclaim The Records — free; Maryland and Baltimore City birth, marriage, and death certificate images and indexes obtained through public-records requests and posted at the Internet Archive.

Law and Government

Maryland's proprietary and state laws explain the jurisdictions and record-keeping that produced its genealogical records, and the state's foundational legal texts are digitized and free to read — more completely than for almost any other state, thanks to the Archives of Maryland series.

• Archives of Maryland Online — the Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, the proceedings of the Governor's Council and the Provincial Court, the annual session laws, and the governors' and Revolutionary-era papers, from 1637 forward; free.
• The legislative records gateway at the Maryland State Archives collects the Assembly journals and the session laws, including Bacon's Laws of Maryland at Large (1765) and Kilty's later compilations, all within the Archives of Maryland volumes.
• The Maryland Manual On-Line traces the structure of the colonial and state government — useful for learning which office created which records.
• Additional digitized Maryland statutes, codes, and the earlier Maryland Manual volumes are on the Internet Archive and HathiTrust.

Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)

Statewide civil registration of births and deaths began in 1898 for the counties, but Baltimore City registered births and deaths from 1875, decades earlier; marriage licenses were required across Maryland from 1777, though the county courts did not record all marriages until 1865. Compliance with the 1898 law was incomplete until about 1914. Because civil registration came late and the colonial parish registration of births lapsed after 1695, church records are the main substitute before 1898. Baltimore City keeps its vital records separately from the rest of the state, as described below.

Statewide (outside Baltimore City). Older records and their indexes are held by the Maryland State Archives; more recent records are held by the Maryland Division of Vital Records. Birth certificates are restricted for about 100 years and later records have tighter access, but the indexes are open to the public; a fee applies to order a certificate. Use these online indexes to find a record, then order it:

• Births (statewide from 1898; Baltimore from 1875): Maryland Births and Christenings, 1639–1995 and Births and Baptisms, 1665–1995 are free on FamilySearch; Maryland Births and Christenings Index, 1662–1911 ($) is on Ancestry and Maryland Births, 1875–1922 ($) on MyHeritage; certificate images are free through Reclaim The Records under the 100-year restriction.
• Marriages (licenses from 1777; all county marriages from 1865): Maryland County Marriages, 1658–1940 is free on FamilySearch; Maryland Compiled Marriage Index, 1634–1777 ($) is on Ancestry and Maryland Marriages, 1911 onward ($) on MyHeritage; the Clerk of the Circuit Court in each county holds the license files.
• Deaths (statewide from 1898, Baltimore from 1875; full compliance by 1914): Maryland Deaths and Burials, 1877–1992 is free on FamilySearch; Maryland State Archives Index to Deaths and Burials, 1697–1800 ($) is on Ancestry and Maryland Deaths, 1875 onward ($) on MyHeritage.
• The Maryland Death Index at the State Archives is a free searchable index with certificate images (statewide 1898–2012 and Baltimore 1875–1972) up to the current legal limit.

Baltimore City. Baltimore is a separate registration jurisdiction, and its Health Department recorded births and deaths from 1875 — long before the counties began in 1898. The Baltimore City Archives documents the city's vital records, and free certificate images for Baltimore births (1875–1922) and deaths (1875–1972) are posted at the Internet Archive through Reclaim The Records. The Baltimore City and county systems were merged into a single statewide agency in 1972.

More recent records — births within the last 100 years, and recent marriages and deaths — are obtained from the Maryland Division of Vital Records; a fee applies.

History and Timeline of Major Events

Key dates that shaped Maryland's jurisdictions and records:

• 1632 — A charter is granted to Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore; the colony is named for Queen Henrietta Maria.
• 1634 — Colonists aboard the Ark and the Dove land at St. Clement's Island and found St. Mary's City, the first capital.
• 1649 — The Maryland Toleration Act guarantees freedom of worship to Trinitarian Christians.
• 1692 — The Church of England is established as the official church, and Maryland becomes a royal province until the Calverts are restored in 1715.
• 1694–1695 — The capital moves from St. Mary's City to Annapolis.
• 1729 — Baltimore Town is founded on the Patapsco River.
• 1763–1767 — The Mason–Dixon Line is surveyed, settling the long boundary dispute with Pennsylvania.
• April 28, 1788 — Maryland ratifies the U.S. Constitution as the seventh state.
• 1791 — Maryland cedes land to help form the District of Columbia.
• 1814 — British forces are repulsed at the Battle of Baltimore and the bombardment of Fort McHenry, inspiring the "Star-Spangled Banner."
• 1831 — A courthouse fire destroys St. Mary's County's land records from before that year.
• 1851 — A new state constitution makes Baltimore City independent of Baltimore County.
• 1864 — A new state constitution abolishes slavery in Maryland, effective November 1.
• 1872 — Garrett County, the last county, is created from part of Allegany.
• 1882 — Fires destroy nearly all of Calvert County's court and probate records back to 1658.
• 1904 — The Great Baltimore Fire destroys much of the city's downtown business district.

Census Records and Substitutes

Federal censuses were taken every ten years from 1790 through 1950, and Maryland appears in all of them, though the 1890 federal census was almost entirely destroyed and some early county schedules were lost (the 1790 returns for Allegany, Calvert, and Somerset counties and part of Dorchester). They are free on FamilySearch and on the National Archives 1950 census site, and are also searchable on Ancestry ($) and MyHeritage ($).

Unlike some states, Maryland took no regular state censuses; its distinctive enumerations are colonial and Revolutionary, and are indexed free at the Maryland State Archives:

• 1776: a provincial census taken for the Council of Safety, naming residents and giving ages; it survives for nine counties — Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Caroline, Dorchester, Frederick, Harford, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, and Talbot — and is also indexed on Ancestry ($).
• 1778: the Oath of Fidelity and Support, listing free men who swore (or refused) allegiance to the new state; scattered county lists survive and are indexed at the State Archives.
• The Maryland Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index ($) gathers these enumerations together with early tax and name lists.

Substitutes. Where censuses are missing, the 1783 tax assessment (a near-statewide list of property holders), the 1798 federal direct tax, and Baltimore city directories (which survive from the late 1700s) are the best tools for placing a family in a given year.

Church Records

Because civil registration came late and colonial parish registration lapsed, church records are the single most important substitute for vital records before about 1898. Maryland was founded under Catholic proprietors and is home to the oldest Catholic diocese in the country; the Church of England (later Episcopal) was the established church from 1692, and its parish registers are among the best early sources; Methodists became the largest Protestant body, and Quakers, Presbyterians, and German Lutheran and Reformed congregations in the western counties are all well represented.

• Maryland Church Records, 1668–1995 — free index and images on FamilySearch, covering Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other congregations.
• Maryland Catholic Families, 1753–1851 ($) — baptisms and marriages abstracted from early parish registers.
• The Archdiocese of Baltimore's sacramental registers, beginning in 1782, are held at the Associated Archives at St. Mary's Seminary and are browsable through Findmypast's Catholic collections.

Catholic parish records more than a century old are held by the diocesan archives — the Archdiocese of Baltimore and, for the Eastern Shore, the Diocese of Wilmington — and thousands of congregational registers can be found through the FamilySearch Catalog by county and town.

Court Records

Maryland's courts reach well beyond lawsuits into estates, guardianships, naturalizations, land, and freedom records, and the State Archives centralizes an unusually complete run of them. The main courts a researcher encounters are:

• Provincial Court (later the General Court), 1637–1805 — the central colonial court: capital cases, major civil suits, and early land and probate business.
• County Courts, 1637–1851 — county civil and criminal matters, replaced by the Circuit Courts.
• Court of Chancery, 1668–1851 — equity: divorces, guardianships, and property disputes.
• Orphans' Court, in each county since 1777 — probate and guardianship, with the Register of Wills serving as its clerk.
• Circuit Courts, since 1851 — the modern county trial courts; the Clerk of the Circuit Court holds land records and, before 1906, many naturalizations.

Colonial and early state court records are described among the Maryland State Archives holdings and printed in Archives of Maryland Online, and modern case information is available through the Maryland Judiciary Case Search (from 1970).

Ethnic/Minority Records

Maryland has been diverse since its founding, and knowing where a group settled points to the records most likely to document a family.

• African Americans. Maryland had one of the largest free Black populations in the country before the Civil War, alongside a large enslaved population. The free Legacy of Slavery in Maryland database gathers manumissions, certificates of freedom (recorded in the county courts from 1805), runaway advertisements, and Chancery and court papers; Maryland and Delaware Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1865–1872 are free on FamilySearch; and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum documents Maryland African American history.
• Indigenous peoples. The Piscataway and Nanticoke and related peoples of the Tidewater and Eastern Shore appear chiefly in the colonial proceedings, treaties, and land dealings printed in Archives of Maryland Online.
• Germans. Rhineland settlers took up farmland in the western counties — Frederick and Washington, and later Carroll and Garrett — from the 1730s, many by way of Philadelphia; their church registers are key sources, and later German immigration came directly through the Port of Baltimore.
• Jewish community. Concentrated in Baltimore from the early 1800s; the Jewish Museum of Maryland holds congregational and family records and documents the community's history.

Immigration and Naturalization

The Port of Baltimore was the nation's second-busiest immigrant gateway after New York. Its piers at Locust Point and Fells Point were tied to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and to steamship lines from Bremen, and German, Irish, and later eastern- and southern-European immigrants arrived in large numbers. Passenger manifests survive from 1820.

• Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820–1948 — free index and images on FamilySearch, with separate indexes for 1820–1897 and 1897–1952.
• To Maryland from Overseas ($) and the Bremen emigration lists give town-of-origin detail for many Baltimore arrivals.

Naturalization. Before 1906 any Maryland court of record — the county courts and the Baltimore city courts among them — could naturalize, so records are scattered; after 1906 the process was federalized. Key finding aids are Maryland Federal Naturalization Records, 1795–1931 ($), the free Maryland Naturalization Indexes, 1797–1951, and the free Maryland Naturalization Petitions, 1906–1931. The National Archives at Philadelphia holds the federal naturalizations.

Land Records

As a state-land state, Maryland granted land itself — first through the Lords Baltimore and, after the Revolution, through the state — so there are no General Land Office records. Original title followed a set sequence: a warrant to take up a stated number of acres, a survey, a certificate of survey, and finally a patent conveying title. Later transfers between individuals are recorded as deeds.

Where the records are kept.

• County level: deeds and mortgages are recorded by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in each county and in Baltimore City; the entire run of county land records is digitized free on mdlandrec.net.
• Maryland State Archives (Annapolis): the Land Office holds the warrants, surveys, certificates, and patents from 1634 onward, together with the proprietary Debt Books and rent rolls; survey plats are on plats.net, and Early Settlers of Maryland indexes seventeenth-century patentees.

The manor and headright system. The early Calvert regime granted land to those who paid to transport settlers (the headright system) and laid out large manors whose lords held their own courts — among them Augustine Herrman's Bohemia Manor in Cecil County, granted for making the first accurate map of Maryland and Virginia; the Carroll family's Doughoregan Manor; and My Lady's Manor in Baltimore County. Knowing which tract or manor an ancestor's land fell in points to where the earliest settlement records survive.

Online, the Settlers of Maryland ($) patent abstracts cover the grants from 1679 to 1783, and FamilySearch Full-Text Search makes many unindexed deeds, patents, and certificates searchable by every name they contain, including grantors, grantees, and neighbors.

Military Records

Maryland took part in every American conflict, and the "Maryland Line" of the Revolution — praised by Washington — gave the state its "Old Line State" nickname; the service records are unusually well published.

• Colonial and Revolutionary War: the muster rolls of the Maryland Line and other service records are printed in Archives of Maryland Online and imaged on Ancestry in Revolutionary War Rolls for Maryland ($) and the Muster Rolls of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution ($).
• War of 1812: Maryland militia defended Baltimore in 1814; The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812–1815 ($) reprints militia rolls, and the State Archives holds the pay and muster records.
• Civil War: as a border state Maryland sent men to both armies. Maryland Civil War Service Records of Union Soldiers and of Confederate Soldiers are free on FamilySearch, and the History and Roster of Maryland Volunteers ($) supplies regimental histories.
• World War I: Maryland Military Men, 1917–1918 ($) indexes the state's service; the State Archives holds service-record abstracts.

Probate Records

Probate — wills, administrations of intestate estates, inventories, and guardianships — is among the richest sources for family relationships, and Maryland's colonial probate is unusually complete because it was centralized. The key dividing line is 1777.

• Before 1777: probate for the whole province ran through the Prerogative Court in Annapolis, so its wills, inventories, and accounts survive even where county courthouses later burned. These records are at the Maryland State Archives, and the standard finding aid is the published Baldwin's Maryland Calendar of Wills (eight volumes, 1635–1743), with a colonial probate index free at the State Archives.
• Since 1777: an Orphans' Court and Register of Wills in each county prove wills, grant administrations, and appoint guardians; the estate file — petition, will or administration, bond, and inventory — usually names the heirs.

Online, Maryland Wills and Probate Records, 1635–1777 ($) is name-searchable on Ancestry, and the Maryland Calendar of Wills ($) is a searchable index; the free Register of Wills Books, 1629–1999 and Probate Estate and Guardianship Files, 1796–1940 are on FamilySearch, and FamilySearch Full-Text Search makes many unindexed wills and estate files searchable by every name they contain.

Tax Records

Tax lists place a family in a specific place and year and are valuable substitutes where censuses or deeds are missing; several consecutive years can reveal when a young man came of age, moved, or died and left heirs.

• The 1783 tax assessment — a near-statewide list of real and personal property that substitutes for the missing early census — survives for most counties at the State Archives and is printed as the 1783 Tax List of Maryland, free on FamilySearch.
• The proprietary Debt Books (from about 1750) record the annual quitrents owed on patented land, tying tax to land ownership; they are held at the Maryland State Archives.
• U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862–1918 ($) — Civil War–era and later federal income, license, and luxury taxes; the 1862–1874 Maryland lists are also free on FamilySearch.