Doing family history research in the United States? You’ll enjoy the resources in the Family History Guide; there are separate research pages for each of the 50 states, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.

And when it comes to doing county research, we’ve got you covered there as well. Under the main picture on each state page, there is a link for counties. Here’s an example for the California page, with the “CA Counties” link highlighted:

Clicking the link takes you to the bottom of the state page, where you will see these types of county resource links:

• FamilySearch
• Ancestry
• Linkpendium
• Genealogy Inc
• USGenWeb

FamilySearch (title)

Clicking a green county title in the list opens the FamilySearch page for that county. Remember to scroll down in this page, as the TOC list on the left is usually quite long. The information is extensive, including links to other California articles and resources.

Ancestry

The information in this page is mostly focused around Ancestry record searches for the particular county. There is less information here than in the FamilySearch page for the county. In the lower-right corner are links to maps and additional resources.

Linkpendium

This is one of my favorite research sites. The list of county resources is extensive and well-organized. To learn about the background of the site founders, click the About Us link at the bottom of the page.

Genealogy Inc

This site focuses mostly on vital, census, and government resources for county research, although it does have an extensive collection of other links at the bottom of the page.

USGenWeb

The USGenWeb pages are successors to the long-standing RootsWeb pages. They are generally compact and easy to use, but you’ll notice a wide variety of formats in the individual county pages, as they are managed by different individual volunteers. Many of these pages also indicate former (defunct) counties and their timelines.

Maps

The final two links in the county pages of The Family History Guide are for map resources. The first link is for a printable, black-and-white map showing all the counties in the state. The second link is for an interactive map from USGenWeb, which enables you to click a county name in the map and see its corresponding page in USGenWeb.

Try the county pages in The Family History Guide. For a fun experiment, look up your birth county, county of current residence, or former residence, and see some great resources waiting to be discovered!