Family History Research at MSU Libraries

Want to know how Mississippi State University Libraries can help you with genealogy and family history research? This guide will direct you to the best people to assist you, depending on the type of question you have.

Important things to know:

• We are not the archives of the state of Mississippi. For that, you'll want to visit the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
• We do not have any vital records such as birth, death, and marriage certificates. These can be ordered from the state's Bureau of Vital Records. FamilySearch has Mississippi death certificates from 1912-1943 searchable with a free account. Be aware that Mississippi didn't issue birth or death certificates before November 1912.
• We cannot do hours of in-depth research on genealogy questions. If your request would require time-intensive archival research, we recommend that you visit us in person. We can also provide recommendations for hiring a research assistant or a professional genealogist.
• Help us help you! The more specific information you give us about what you know and what you're trying to find, the more we can help you.

I'm a beginner who wants to start researching my family history!

If you want to learn how to start your family tree and begin searching records, we recommend making an appointment with librarian DeeDee Baldwin. In these virtual appointments, DeeDee can share her computer screen with you and show you the most useful websites and search strategies for the information you need. 

I have a question about a particular ancestor.

Please use this form to tell us what you already know and what specific question you're trying to answer. Here are examples of the kinds of questions we can help you with:

• I'm looking for the parents of Jane Doe, who was born in the late 1800s and lived in Jackson. Her husband's name was John Doe. She died around 1950.
• I'm trying to find Jack Smith on the 1900 census. He was born in Yazoo County around 1860.
• I'm trying to find a death date for Ed Davis, born 1910 in Virginia, died in Mississippi sometime in the nineties.

If you don't have much basic info and want us to help you find anything you can about an ancestor, it's best to make a virtual appointment with DeeDee Baldwin or email dbaldwin@library.msstate.edu. The more you can tell us about when and where the person lived, names of other family members, etc., the more likely we can help you!

I'm looking for an obituary or newspaper article.

If you have exact information about the newspaper and date, please use this form to request a lookup in MSU's large collection of Mississippi newspapers on microfilm.

If you don't have exact information, email DeeDee Baldwin (dbaldwin@library.msstate.edu), who can search some online newspaper databases for you. As always, the more information you can give us about names, date ranges, and locations, the better we can help.

You may also want to try searching Chronicling America, the free historical newspaper database provided by the Library of Congress.

Is there any info about my family in the MSU Archives and local history collections?

This is where things get a little more complicated and time-intensive! We have hundreds of archival collections spread over seven floors. Most of these collections include documents in handwriting that can be difficult to read. There is no database or catalog that can be searched for every name mentioned on every page of every collection. We do have searchable finding aids for our collections, but these cover the major subjects of the collection, not every name that might appear in them. If you want to get an idea of how we might be able to help you, please email Special Collections (sp_coll@library.msstate.edu) with what you know and what you're hoping to find. In many cases, archival searches do require the researcher or a hired assistant to visit in-person, sometimes over multiple days.

I'm still not sure about how to get help with what I need.

No worries! Email DeeDee Baldwin (dbaldwin@library.msstate.edu) with all other genealogy questions.

Can I call instead of emailing?

Yes. We do prefer to handle genealogy questions through email and online forms because we have all your info in writing in a format that's easy for us to search and manage. Genealogy phone calls can get very confusing on our end as we try to scribble down a lot of names, dates, and places. That said, we understand that a phone call may be the only way a patron can contact us. We only ask that you be patient as we try to write everything down accurately.

You can call Archives & Special Collections at (662) 325-7679 or DeeDee Baldwin at (662) 325-2838. Please leave a message if no one is there to answer.