Mexico, Central America, and South America by Kimberly Powell
The countries of Central and South America do not yet have many family history records available online. The free FamilySearch site (www.familysearch.org) is quickly changing that, however. You can also use the Internet to learn how to conduct research in these countries, and find contact information and instructions for ordering records.
Find Births and Marriages at FamilySearch
Available for free searching via the FamilySearch website (www.familysearch.org), the Mexico vital records indexes include more than 44 million baptism, 6 million marriage, and almost 400,000 death records from Mexico, a partial listing of records covering the years 1560 to 1950. It also contains 1930 Mexico Census and Mexican civil registration records and Catholic church records. FamilySearch has census and/or vital records collections for many Central and South American countries as well, including Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. From the FamilySearch home page, scroll down and select a country of interest to begin navigating your way to available records.
Before you dig into the online databases, it pays to become familiar with the ins and outs of genealogy research in your country of interest. Introductory guides to research in many countries around the world can be found at FamilySearch.org (www.familysearch.org). Select “Learn” from the top navigation bar and then search or browse for your country of interest.
Locate Country-Specific Resources at GenWeb
Visit the North America Genealogy Project (www.worldgenweb.org/index.php/northamgenweb) to locate online resources and records, and to connect with fellow researchers for the countries of Central America, including Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. For genealogy research in South America — encompassing the countries of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and others — the South AmericanGenWeb Project (www.worldgenweb.org/~southamericangenweb) serves as an online repository for source records, family histories, genealogy queries, and links to online databases. Both sites are free and fully supported by volunteers.
