The state library or archive can often be a genealogist's best friend — even online genealogists. Many are scanning, digitizing, and indexing the most popular records from their vast holdings, and placing them online for free access by genealogists, historians, and other researchers. Budget shortages and other issues may dictate that new data isn't added as quickly as everyone might like, but these state resources often offer access to databases or indexes not available elsewhere online.

The Illinois State Archives (www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases.html), one of the first to provide online access to selected records, offers a Statewide Marriage Index, 1763 to 1900, and a Statewide Death Index, 1917 to 1950, along with public-domain land sales, emancipation records, military records, and several county-level probate and circuit court indexes. Another good example is the Missouri State Archives (www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/ordb.asp), where you can search a database of births and deaths prior to 1910, or search and view digital copies of death certificates from 1910 to 1959. They also have indexes and/or abstracts of coroner's inquest records, naturalization records, and pre-1900 St. Louis City and County probate records. For those researching in Virginia, the website of the Library of Virginia (www.virginiamemory.com/collections) offers eighty-plus databases, indexes, and finding aids of use to genealogists, including World War I history questionnaires; historical Virginia photographs; and a database of Virginia Land Office patents, grants, and surveys from 1623 to 1992. Try a search for “your state name” archives or “your state name” state library to locate such sites.