Understanding the places your ancestors lived is critical to sound genealogical research. For information on Maryland’s history, records, repositories, and source materials, we recommend consulting the following guides.

The Maryland State Archives is Maryland's principal repository for state and county historic records.  In addition to detailed information on its holdings, the Archives' Web site includes several helpful research guides, including:

Most of Maryland's historic vital records are housed at the Maryland State Archives and are available online at several websites. MGS has developed guidance on what's available and how to navigate the online sites to find the records you're searching for.

Maryland Vital Records Guidance

Other sites that provide a wealth of information on Maryland records and genealogical research include:

  • Maryland Center for History and Culture. (MCHC) The Guide to Genealogical Research provides information on genealogical research in Maryland and the resources available in the MCHC library. Use of the library is free to joint members of MGS and MCHC.
  • FamilySearch.org Research Wiki. The Maryland page also has links to pages for each of Maryland's counties.
  • Cyndi's List. This categorized and cross-referenced index to genealogical resources on the Internet includes a Maryland page with more than 35 subcategories of links.
  • Rootsweb Wiki. The Maryland Family History Research section contains information originally published in the Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.

For locality-specific and topic-specific information assembled by MGS, see:

Links
Books and Articles