How To Find Information: Los Angeles County

How to Find Information on
Your Los Angeles County Ancestors
OR Living Relatives

You can research most information regarding your California ancestor without ever setting foot in California!
For a complete desciption of researching in California, see the following links:

Guide to Research on the Internet -- California by Chris Gaunt

Cyndi's List -- California resources

Vital Records PLEASE NOTE: As of 7/19/06 some of this information may be outdated. Please see the Los Angeles County Recorder/Registrar's Office website for correct details.

Birth, Death, Marriage Certificates

To obtain information from birth, death or marriage certificates, you will need to write to the
Los Angeles County Recorder-Registrar Office.

Fees: See Recorders Website for current information.

(Note: The fee for records search is non-refundable)
See Los Angeles County Recorder-Registrar Office for more details.

You can also try:

Birth: $13.00 per search, since July 1, 1905
Death: $9.00 per search, since July 1, 1905
Marriage: $13.00 per search, since July 1, 1905
Divorce: $13.00 per search, since Jan, 1962

Additional fee is charged for each 10 years searched. Processing time is 8-10 weeks. Use a credit card to cut the processing time in half, but add $5.00.

Los Angeles County marriage applications (1850-1910) and certificates (1851-1919)
are available from the Family History Libraries on microfilm.

Obituaries

To obtain a copy of an obituary, your best bet is to locate the newspaper for that city, then request
a copy from the library. I am working on a list of Los Angeles County Newspapers. Or, you can check your local library for Ayers Directory of Publications, which lists, by state and city, all publications in a particular geographic region. For library addresses and links, click here.

Military Information

SPECIAL NOTICE: I have been notified that NARA's prices for these records have gone up in July 2000.

Service Records

Copies of military service records can be obtained by writing to the National Archives.
See National Archives Military Service Records for more details.

Sawtelle Veterans Home

The following information is from the Guide to Records in the National Archives-Pacific Southwest Region at http://www.nara.gov/regional/findaids/laggdtoc.html:

Dates: 1888-1933

Records of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Pacific Branch, Sawtelle, California.The records document individuals and activities at the home. Included are a sample of members' case files,internment registers, post fund proceedings, and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings.For information about obtaining copies, see the above page.

USC NROTC Alumni page

Immigration and Naturalization

The Los Angeles County Archives, 225 North Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012, has records of
Los Angeles County for the years 1856 to 1886. The National Archives Pacific Southwest region has the
years following. See National Archives Naturalization Records for more details.

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild

Census

When trying to narrow down a time period of residence in any county, the census is the best place to start.
If you are in the US, you can order films of the census for viewing at your local Family History Library.
The Family History Library has the U.S. federal censuses for the state of California from 1850 to 1920.
Lookups are available for the 1850 CITY of Los Angeles Census. The 1890 census wasdestroyed in a fire. The 1930 census will be available to the public in 2004.

Mortality schedules for the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses are at the California State Library. A published index to the 1850 schedule is available at the Family History Library.

Pre-statehood lists (called padrons) of Spanish, Mexican, and Indian residents, have been published in the Southern California Historical Society Quarterly, vols. 15, 18, 41-43, 54 (FHL book 979.4 B2s). Especially helpful are the Los Angeles census records of 1790, 1836, and 1844. The original records are scattered among various archives. The Family History Library has copies on microfilm. Lookups are available for the 1844 Mexican Padron Census.

Cemeteries

This can be difficult in the Los Angeles area. If your death certificate and obituary do not list thename of the cemetery, try contacting the cemeteries closest to the last known residence. For a list of Los Angeles County cemeteries, click here.

When a cemetery has been transcribed, records can often be viewed through your local Family History Center,
or ordered through interlibrary loan from

Sutro Library

Church Records

See LDS Family History Library Research Outline for California

Probate Records

To obtain probate records from Los Angeles County call

(213) 974-5175 if your ancestor died after 1965 or
(213) 974-1378 if your ancestor died before 1965.

Give them the name and year of death.
If the record is there they will give you a record index number.

Then send a letter with the name, case # and death year to:

Los Angeles County Records Center
222 N. Hill Street, Room 212
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Enclose a legal size SASE and a check made out to "Los Angeles Superior Court". The records are $0.57 a page. They suggest that you put "not to exceed twenty dollars" below the line where you usually fill in the written amount and they will fill it in when they retrieve the records. It should take 2-3 weeks to process your request.

City Directories

The Family History Library has Los Angeles city directories for years 1873-1901.
FHL films 1,376,980-89 1910, 1942, etc. FHL books 979.493 E4LL.

A check of the current LDS Family History Library CD-ROM catalog indicates that the following directories are available for the "city" of Los Angeles. In order to be available, the directory must be on either microfilm or microfiche. There are directories for other Los Angeles County cities, Pasadena , etc. however they are not available on film for distribution to local FHC's. Also the first set of directories are also catagorized under the cities of San Pedro, Wilmington, and Sawtelle. I don't know if this means that all the directories contain sections for these areas of if just certain of the years feature these areas. There are supposedly 49 rolls of microfilm in the first set.

YEARS COVERED FILM NUMBERS
1873-1901/1902 1376980-1376989
1902-1935 1611676-1611714

There is a different set of films covering the following years:

1887-1901 1000829-1000853
1879-1882 1036795
1887-1909 1033920-1033925
1910 1698057
1942 1321490

When a range of years is given, it is not necessarily true that all years within the range are there, but they may well be.

There is a copy of a 1923 Gillespie Guide, but am not sure it's truly a city directory. Film #1698152 (Item #15).

Also, there is a copy of the Los Angeles/Pasadena "blue book" for 1903 available on Film #1320700 (Item #5). From it's description I'm sure that my family wouldn't be listed in it, if for no other reason that they didn't live in Pasadena at that time.

[Thanks to Larry Kuttner for this information!]

Ethnic Research

The FHL catalog lists histories and records for ethnic groups such as the Chilean, Chinese, French,
German, Irish, Jewish, Polish, and Yugoslav, under CALIFORNIA - MINORITIES.

Records of American Indians are described under CALIFORNIA - NATIVE RACES.
From the National Archives--San Francisco Branch, the FHL has acquired copies of agency records of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs for the years 1873 to 1947.

Land Records

See LDS Family History Library Research Outline for California Research

Federal land patents, and copies of tract books and township plats, are at

The National Archives has the original tract books, plat maps, and land-entry case files.
These include cash entries and homestead entries.

For later land transactions, contact the
Los Angeles County Recorder-Registrar Office

High School Alumni

Los Angeles County Alumni Links