California Vital Records -- Including California births, California deaths, California marriages, cemetery, census, and more records.
Birth, Marriage, and Death Records
| Title of web site | Web site address | # of records | Date Range | Cost or Free | Notes | Or try this... |
| Global Tree California Births | www.gencircles.com
/globaltree/ and put CA in the birth place field | 0ver 58,000 | varies | Free | A nice searchable site where people put up there own files in hopes to help others and/or get more information. |  California Pioneers, 1542-1848 |
| San Francisco Birth Records | | 0ver 2,300 | before 1920, most before 1905 | Free | You look up a surname and go from there. Many of these come from pre-1905 newspapers. |  Update: California Vital Record Closures |
| RootsWeb California Birth WorldConnect Records | worldconnect.rootsweb.com
/cgi-bin/igm.cgi and put Califonia in the birth place field | 0ver 300,000 | varies | Free | WorldConnect, sponsored by RootsWeb, is an online genealogy board where people can post their genealogical and contact information. |  California and Californians, Vol. 1 |
| RootsWeb California Marriage WorldConnect Records | worldconnect.rootsweb.com
/cgi-bin/igm.cgi and put Califonia in the marriage place field | 0ver 290,000 | varies | Free | WorldConnect, sponsored by RootsWeb, is an online genealogy board where people can post their genealogical and contact information. |  California & Sierra Nevada Region, 1833-1860 |
| "San Francisco Call" Database Index | feefhs.org/fdb2
/sfcalli.html | approx. 240,000 | 1869-1895 | Does not cost for initial lookup, but it is $4 for a full database record that tells exact date. | A neat site with many names. Unfortunately, when you find the name you are looking for, the date of death or marriage is pretty general. |  Felix Wierzbicki, California Guidebook, 1849 |
| RootsWeb California Death WorldConnect Records | worldconnect.rootsweb.com
/cgi-bin/igm.cgi and put Califonia in the death place field | 0ver 930,000 | varies | Free | WorldConnect, sponsored by RootsWeb, is an online genealogy board where people can post their genealogical and contact information. |  California Narratives: Early Voyages to California
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| Obiruary Daily Times: California | obits.rootsweb.com
/cgi-bin/obit.cgi and put "CA" in the Keyword Search | 0ver 707,000 | more recent dates | Free | Another nice Rootsweb site. The problem is that most of the death records are more recent. But it’s a great start. |  California and the Sierra-Nevada Region, 1833-60 |
| Global Tree CA Deaths | www.gencircles.com
/globaltree/ and put CA in the death place field | 0ver 146,000 | varies | Free | A nice searchable site where people put up there own files in hopes to help others and/or get more information. |  California Narratives: California for Health, Pleasure and Residence |
Census Records
| Title of web site | Web site address | # of records | Date Range | Cost or Free | Notes | Or try this... |
| The USGenWeb Census Project | www.us-census.org and go down to Census Surname Search and then find CA and put in the word "census" | 28 links with varying numbers of records per each | 1790-1920 | Free | Wow, what a site! Transcribed by volunteers and still in the works, I really found this site great! You can search by year, state, or name! |  California Census, 1790-1890 |
| Census Online, California, 133 links | www.census-online.
com/links/CA/ | 1,000s | 1840-1900 | Free | Another nice site without the information of how much is posted. A lot is posted however it is difficult to search through to find your ancestor as there is not a surname search |  Shasta County, California Register, 1898 |
| Foreign-born voters of California in 1872 The Great Registry | feefhs.org/
fbvca/fbvcagri.html | 61,691 | 1872 | You can first find your ancestor, where they were from and their age for free, but then to get a more complete record you send $5, or $12 for a printout of a page of the registry. | Another nice starting place if your ancestors migrated to California before 1872. Again, there is a cost, but you can find out their date of naturalization and where it took place. |  George Weeks, California Newspaperman |